Our smart devices are happy to record our steps, weight, heart rate and sleep each day. However, we don’t necessarily spend a lot of time “navel gazing” or trying to interpret our data for meaning. A company called Mango Mirror has developed a slick and easy to use interface we can now have our data displayed on any HDMI screen throughout our homes. This setup of informative screens can bring unhealthy practices to our attention. Not getting enough sleep, weight gain or simply not moving enough through the day becomes obvious when the data is presented. This post will illustrate the magic of using an iOS device to configure a Raspberry Pi 3 running MangOS.
Pi Setup
Mango Mirror has created their own Raspberry Pi distribution called MangOS which makes getting started a snap. All we need to do is download their OS image onto a SD card using Etcher and boot up our Raspberry Pi. It is necessary to use a Raspberry Pi 3. If you have not already picked up an SD Card and a USB microreader be sure and do so. Finally, any HDMI display will work, but I particularly like the Adafruit 7″ 800 x 480. In a future guide I’ll be using a mirror and PIR (motion) sensor to really bling out this setup.
- Mango Mirror has provided some simple instructions for getting a Raspberry Pi going.
- download MangOS here
- locate the file ( ~/Downloads ) and unzip MangOS.zip
- Use Etcher to burn the resulting IMG file (2.02_prod_29_08_18.img) on to your microSD card. You will need to plug-in the Micro SD reader. This process takes about 20 minutes to copy over.
- Now simple place the microSD card into your Raspberry Pi and power the unit up.
iOS Pairing and Configuration
After trying a few different smart mirror open source utilities I was completely blown away by the ease of configuring the Mango Mirror Pi and widgets from my phone. I had connected a keyboard to the Pi which was totally unnecessary. Using the Mango iOS App I was able to pair over bluetooth and configure the Pi’s location and WiFi without having to type or click anything on the Pi.
The downside of using Mango Mirror today is that the Health data which is being read pulled Apple Health is a premium service which costs about ~$20 a year. There is of course news, weather and calendar widgets that are free and ready to use immediately.
