Gadget Review: 350W Infrared Smart Mirror

"Mirror Mirror on the wall. What's the hottest gadget of them all?"

Do you need a mirror which is connected to the Internet? Yes. Obviously. What's the point of having anything which doesn't have an IP address‽

The good folks at Infrared Group don't want me shivering while I blog, so they've sent me their latest Far Infrared heating panel which, obviously, is also a smart mirror. 350W of heat, enough for a 6m² room, and a cool little display to tell you the weather.

Let's put it through its paces.

Photos

Look, taking photos of a mirror is difficult!

Here's what the weather display looks like:

And here's the power button, located at the centre near the bottom edge:

It is an edge-to-edge mirrored panel, there are LEDs around the back of the edges which light up on demand:

Installation

The mirror needs to be mounted on the wall. It comes with a set of fairly hefty screws & rawlplugs. It weighs about 10.5㎏, so is suitable for most walls when properly installed.

There's also a handy paper guide which will allow you to mark exactly where you want it to hang. That's pretty useful and should stop you making too many holes in your wall.

The power cord is reasonably long - 120㎝. It is IP65 rated, so can cope with splashes. The retailer recommends installing it in a bathroom, although I'd suggest getting an electrician to fit it safely if you're doing that.

At about 100x60㎝, it takes up a chunk of space - thankfully, it's a rather shallow 5㎝ deep (2.5㎝ for the mirror and 2.5㎝ for the brackets).

Interface

The bottom of the panel displays a lit power symbol. It's the only physical way to control the smart mirror.

• Long-press turns the heating on or off.
• Single-tap turns the edge lighting on or off.
• Double-tap turns the weather display on or off.

Weather Display

There's a reasonable amount of data on the weather display. It can also be set in the app to optionally show the next day's weather as well.

Sun, cloud, and rain are all fairly prominent. There's also temperature outside (current, high, and low), temperature inside, and humidity both inside and outside.

A small icon shows whether WiFi is active. There's also a prominent date and time. All of which can be configured in…

The App

This is usually the weakest part of any domestic IoT offering. The mirror's app is developed by Adsmart Baolun Technology Ltd who specialise in making white-label products like smart lights, wristbands, and other gadgets. Their page about the smart mirror is a little bare-bones, but shows you what's available.

They provide the WiseMirror app (for Android and iOS) which is basic, but gets the job done.

Here's what you can do:

• Set up WiFi
  • Only supports 2.4GHz Wifi, as is common with most IoT. This thing isn't pulling down GB of data, so speed isn't an issue.
• Change the brightness of the weather display
  • High, Medium, or Low.
• Weather
  • The mirror will geolocate your IP address to provide local weather, or you can set your own location.
  • You can set localisation options like whether to use ℃ or ℉, and whether to use Day-Month or Month-Day
• Sleep timer
  • The weather display will dim (but not go off) during these times.
• Firmware update
  • Mine had the latest, so I couldn't test this.

The app is poorly translated, but not egregiously so. It doesn't ask for ridiculous permissions and doesn't run in the background.

There are several weather-provider servers, but they don't have names attached to them.

Rather conspicuous by its absence is the ability to control the heating remotely.

Notes on Infrared Heating

There are a few things to be aware of before getting an Infrared heater. Firstly, the heating experience is different to a traditional hot-water heater. Not worse; just different. A normal radiator heats the air whereas IR heats objects. I liken it to being in a sunny patch on a cool autumn day - you are warm, but the air isn't.

Secondly, Infrared heating is instant. Once you turn it on the heat starts. When you turn it off, the heat stops. Again, different from a radiator which takes some time to heat up, but stays warm after it has been switched off.

The panel is, effectively, 100% efficient. Every Watt of electricity becomes heat - and there's no wasted steam puffing out of your boiler's flue. But electricity is generally more expensive than gas. Of course, you can choose to only heat the room you're in rather than a whole house.

What I'm saying is that there are advantages and disadvantages. Being able to get instant heat in a single location, without burning gas or pumping water, is brilliant. But you need to understand that they are a different type of heater.

Technical Geekery

The MAC address shows that it is using standard Espressif module for WiFi. I couldn't find any open ports using NMAP. It uses the hostname "LEDWifi". The app communicates directly with the mirror using UDP on ports 8000 and 8001 - it also makes a connection to commander.adsmart.com.cn.

I took a brief look through the app, there don't appear to be any hidden settings for setting the heating. It uses Accuweather to look up cities (although uses plain http for that). In my brief period monitoring the panel, it didn't seem to do anything dodgy. But, as with any piece of IoT gear, you may want to place it on an isolated network.

Downsides

The big downside is a lack of remote control for the heading and lighting. It would be fantastic if this could be integrated into HomeAssistant, or Alexa, but I'd even settle for control via the app. There's no public API that I can see.

The heating is pretty much instant, so you don't need to switch it on 10 minutes before you want to feel warm. And pressing a button isn't too much of a burden. But it does feel like a bit of a wasted opportunity especially as the app will show you the internal temperature.

The other downsides are pretty minor.

The weather display seems accurate enough. There are 4 different weather providers listed, but the app doesn't say who they are.

The LED lighting around the edge is a fairly cool white. Multicolour LEDs might have been a nice touch.

Other than that, there isn't anything to complain about.

Price

Including delivery, the 350W model comes to £500.

By way of comparison, the Infrared Group have a bunch of non-smart heaters with a mirror finish starting at £240 for those with LED lighting.

If you want a plain white 350W panel that'll cost you about £170.

You can also get panels with images on them for around £240. Or about £325 if you want your own image printed on them.

You're paying a bit of a premium for the "magic mirror" element - but it does look lovely.

Verdict

This is a great Infrared heater. It powers on quickly and produces a good amount of heat. If you want instant heat in a moderately sized room, it's perfect.

The weather display is pretty useful and seemingly accurate.

The app is basic but easy enough to use - it doesn't require an account or anything complicated than that.

As a mirror? Well, it showed my face clearly 😉

It is slightly annoying that the WiFi connection is only used for weather and basic config. Being able to remotely control this would make it truly excellent.

If this is your first time experimenting with Infrared heating, I'd recommend starting with one of their basic panels. If you're looking for more of a statement piece, want the weather displayed, and are happy to manually switch it on then this is a worthy addition to your home.

You can buy the 350W Infrared Smart Mirror directly today and have it up and running quickly.