In the march to make everything “smart”, no household object is safe from being turned into a computer.

Watches, fridges, cars and now mirrors are getting the treatment with varying degrees of success.

Now we have the smart mirror that displays anything you’d like as an overlay on a mirror – and we’re strangely drawn to this elegant piece of tech.

This DIY device comes to us courtesy of Imgur user zimm218 (no real name given) and, although he happens to be a web developer, this project is simpler than it seems.

All you’ll need for this is a TV with sufficient fidelity, a Raspberry Pi, some mirror film (or a two-way mirror) and a few spare hours.

In this example, the TV is a 32″ offering from Samsung that has been stripped of its bezel to give it a classier look. Connected to the TV on the back is a Raspberry Pi 2 via HDMI, that’s powered via USB.

While some smart mirrors use a camera to capture what is in front of it, this one is more passive, using mirror film. It allows the display from the TV to shine through while giving the illusion of a mirror. The final option to create the mirror is simply buying a two-way mirror that is the same size as the screen, but that’s going to cost a pretty penny.

Now for software: what you see (which isn’t a reflection) is actually just a webpage. The Raspberry Pi acts a server which hosts the private page that only the creator can access. While that does require some fandangling with server nodes and a connection to the internet, this was the particular creator’s strongsuit. If you’d like to give it a bash, there are ways to do it offline. Luckily, if you want to go this route, the steps to do so are fully explained.

View the full tutorial gallery on Imgur. Included are links to open source software and similar guides to help you.