The average American household spends about $1,500 a year on electricity. Most of it walks out the door with no clear sense of where. Your utility’s smart meter reports yesterday’s total. It won’t tell you that an old game console pulls 30W while it sits “off,” or that your water heater runs right when grid prices peak. Home Assistant fixes that. Pair the right hardware with the built-in Energy Dashboard, and you get per-device, per-circuit visibility.

A DIY smart mirror uses a two-way mirror panel, a monitor, and a Raspberry Pi running MagicMirror² . Behind the glass, the monitor shows widgets that seem to float in the reflection. Link it to Home Assistant and it turns from a novelty into a useful home panel. You see which lights are on, if the front door is locked, and your next calendar event.

Materials and Hardware Shopping List

Getting the parts right before you cut or mount saves a lot of pain. Two pieces shape the final build: the mirror and the monitor.