Introduction
As Tomorrow Lab has taken on more beauty and wellness industry projects in 2024, we thought it would be a blast to revisit one of our personal favorite The Teardown episodes featuring also one of our favorite past TL’ers Jingwen Zhu. In this episode we explore the simplehuman sensor mirror – but this was back in 2019, so we are curious to find out what improvements have been made in this product space!
The Teardown
Tomorrow Lab’s partners Ted Ullrich and Pepin Gelardi sit down with Zhu to learn why she loves this mirror, or more so the features of this mirror. While Zhu owns one herself, we made sure to purchase a used one on Ebay so we could dive into taking it apart with no hesitation.
Special features of the simplehuman mirror:
- The ring light on the outer perimeter lights up when the user’s face is in front of it, activated by a sensor at the very top.
- The main ring light is full of surgical grade LEDs, allowing for even light and no hot spots.
- These special LEDs have a color rendering index of 95, which simulates natural sunlight’s full color range, making makeup application ‘flawless,’ as both Zhu and simplehuman quip.
- Offers two lighting scenarios/warmness: full sunlight and ‘true to life’ candlelight.
- An LED light on the bottom indicates the current charge.
- A touch sensor on the back adjusts the brightness of the main light.
- The mirror has 5x magnification.
- The mirror is fully adjustable to accommodate various angles.
They proceed in taking the mirror apart, by identifying screws on the back and bottom of the mirror, which allowed the assembly to come apart easily until a snag was hit and they ended up breaking the mirror! Gelardi explains that, “really good industrial design sometimes does a good job at obscuring how things fit.” They were able to figure out that the mirror is designed to come apart with heat and used suction cups to pry the mirror apart, which exposed a whole bunch more screws.
Zhu goes over the electrical components (when she was at TL, she was an electrical design engineer) found in the base of the mirror. It consists of a battery, main PCB board which holds the charging and indication circuitry, and then is connected to a longer cable which on the opposite side holds two very bright LEDs that face opposite directions, of which those lights feed into the light pipe that follows the circumference of the mirror. Gelardi says these custom designed LEDs are “incredible, and half the size of a grain of rice.” Ullrich points out that the two LEDs are mounted on an unusual material – aluminum – which must be in order to sync and distribute the heat coming from the lights. In order to achieve the dimming effect, Ullrich describes the use of an infrared sensor hidden behind a window at the top of the mirror.
An infrared sensor is comprised of two elements: an emitter LED and receiver sensor. The emitter is giving off light, and when something (or someone) is in front of it, it activates the receiver sensor by way of reflection. Zhu points out that simplehuman uses this same technology feature in many of their other products like trash bins and soap dispensers. The capacitive sensor strip shows there are eight segments, meaning eight levels of brightness, with the indication that there is fading between each one to give the perception of many more levels.
The teardown ends with Gelardi and Ullrich suggesting an ‘info mirror’ feature – being able to provide information on your day like the weather or calendar reminders on one side with a regular mirror, and then the opposite side having the magnifying mirror.
Smart Mirrors of Today
After revisiting this super fun Teardown, I wanted to see what other mirrors have come onto the market – and is simplehuman’s still going strong?
Simplehuman has indeed come out with an upgraded – and pricier at $350 – sensor mirror that touts ‘three mirrors in one.’ This mirror is two inches wider than the original and is dual sided with the updated side having a 1x true view with a 10x window at the bottom of the mirror for detail work like applying eye makeup. While it definitely is an upgrade to have a regular mirror on one side, it does seem like all the core technology remains the same or similar.
Ullrich’s dream of a connected, smart mirror has definitely come true in the last five years. Artforma offers a variety of products from decorative mirrors to bathroom cabinets. This super cool irregularly shaped smart mirror has a smart screen in the corner that can connect and display music, streaming apps, your calendar, and even display search results. The perimeter ring light has several color temperatures and can be controlled by touch sensors.
Launched in 2018, MIRROR, (now Lululemon Studio) fitness mirror really took off during the pandemic for at home solo or group workouts. In fact it was during the pandemic that Lululemon acquired MIRROR and integrated it into their core product offerings. Now we can admire our leggings while making sure our form is correct! What is great about this smart mirror is that when turned off, it blends seamlessly into the room which is unheard of for fitness equipment. While there are no visible LEDs on this mirror, the entire mirror is a screen and is customizable to display your camera view, the media or workout content you are following, and can connect to various apps like your calendar, weather and search.
The screen’s navigation is done through an app or remote, and not a touch screen or side buttons to minimize smudges on the screen, which does make sense but I could see a need for a touch screen, if for example wanting to pause/rewind/fast forward a class super easily. It was a bummer to learn that Lululemon has phased out the mirror due to lack of sales. Hopefully in the future as technology advances the price can come down on genius products like this so we can all have one in our home!
After some (shopping) research, I was not able to find a smart tabletop mirror that had powerful LEDs, magnification and everyday connected smart capabilities – only in larger wall mounted mirrors. I am sure this feature is just around the corner! I was able to find some more affordable and highly rated mirrors that can compete with simplehuman, however I think they still reign supreme!
To learn about some of the beauty industry projects Tomorrow Lab has helped bring to life, check out The Mint for Richualist, Cleopatra for Exponent and Smart Cap for SK-II.
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