AwareMirror: Augmented Bathroom Mirror + Toothbrush

Shave, brush your teeth, and view the days appointments with the AwareMirror from the CS department of Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.

The AwareMirror uses a one-way mirror in front of an LCD display to augment the mirror with information. This works on the same principal seen in TV cop shows where the suspect sees himself in the one-way mirror if the room on the opposite side is dark, but sees the detective if the light is on. The AwareMirror functions as a mirror on the black LCD areas and as a display on lighted LCD areas. To know who’s in front of the mirror they attach RFID tags to toothbrushes.

You may notice in the image a red zipper at the bottom of the mirror! The “Zipper” metaphor is used to change the system from displaying personal information to non-personal info, such as the time, the weather, and Eric Cartmen on a red truck.

The paper is in the proceedings of Pervasive 2005. Thanks to Enrico for passing it along.