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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall….Make my Party Best of All

The Party Photo Booth with a difference

In 2014 a man called Michael Teeuw from Holland started to design a photo booth that would change party entertainment around the world. Michael began to design the Magic Mirror with a Mirror, a Monitor screen, software called Raspberry Pi, a wooden frame and lots of spare time.

The Mirror

The design concept needed to be different from a regular mirror that would simply display a reflection, it needed to be semi-transparent. Therefore, it should behave like a mirror when the screen behind it was black, and should behave like a regular glass window when information is displayed on the screen. 

This is the same idea how a mirror in a police interrogation room works. When only one room is light, it behaves like a mirror. Otherwise it’s a regular glass window. Once Michael oobtained the thin piece of mirror the design fun began.

The Monitor

After solving the mirror issue it was time to get his hands on a monitor to incorporate into the Magic Mirror project. A good sized but thin monitor screen was essential. A superb list of high quality monitor screens was not a problem.

The Magic Mirror started began to take shape and was finished with a sleek white casing. It was time to start the installation of the hardware.

The Hardware & Raspberry Pi

The Hardware and powerful platform called Raspberry Pi.

So far Michael had the following parts:

  • The Monitor
  • A Raspberry Pi
  • A HDMI Cable (to connect the Raspberry to the Monitor)
  • A USB to micro USB cable (to power the Raspberry Pi)
  • A power cable to power the monitor

Another milestone was reached. This concluded all the physical stuff (besides the two screws that went into the wall …) It was time for Michael to start the geek part: installing the raspberry.

So, now that all the hardware was done, it was time to install the Raspberry Pi. To meet all the needs for the new Magic Mirror, the Raspberry needed the following features:

  • Wifi connectivity
  • 90 degrees screen rotation to match the portrait screen orientation.
  • A local webserver to host the interface.
  • A browser running full screen to display the interface.

Many Magic Mirrors were designed around the world including:

  • Germany – Jacek Romanowski
  • Poland – Tomasz Misiukiewicz
  • USA – Marcus Baldwin
  • USA – Johnathan Sandoval
  • Sweden – Aksel Gustafson
  • Sweden – Kristoffer Nolfalk
  • Germany – Philipp Baur
  • Germany – Torben Tigges
  • ​Germany – Nils Hühnerfürst
  • Pero Kivić – Vienna Austria

The Magic Mirror continues to amaze the world of entertainment and information with photography selfies and now the ever popular magic mirror photo booths. The Magic Mirror is now voted Number 1 Best Entertianment in the MagPi Top 50 

The Open Source platform has been re-created, edited and changed to adapt into one of the most fun and fulfilling party hire systems that is still rapidly growing to become one of the most wanted party fun ideas.

Needless to say it’s many thanks to Michael Teeuw in Holland who provided this great inssight and hisstorical reference to the Magic Mirror and MagicMirror2. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…….is this the best ever entertainment idea of all time?…….We certainly think so. 

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