The kickstarter. These criticisms aren't in any order. It's kind of scatterbrained but here's what I think:

HD Camera - They’re putting an internet connected camera in people’s restrooms. Also, when you have a steamy shower, the camera will be covered in steam so the time of day when you can be sure to be using the mirror, you won’t be able to identify who you are to the mirror.

A lot of their features require APIs that you have to pay for. Are they making any guarantees that they’ll continue to support features such as voice recognition, facial recognition, commute options, and news - all of which almost certainly require rather expensive monthly fees? Who’s to say that they go out of business soon after you receive your mirror? Then you’ll be left with a worthless, $250 mirror?

They claim to have been featured on some asian website (CBC) but I can’t find the article. I can’t even find the news website. I even did a reverse image search of their square, yellow logo and NOTHING turned up. It’s very possible that they’re lying about their news coverage. They probably assumed that, because it’s clearly a chinese website, no one would care enough to check.

In the gif where the lady is putting on her makeup, several things are wrong. It’s probably a rendering. As someone who has built a “Smart Mirror” before, I am positive that the white buttons are too bright. If this were a prototype, they would be difficult to see against the white wall background. Further evidence that it’s a rendering: the ui is very poorly thought out. Why have a square “stop” button instead of a pause button? Why have the play button while the video is playing? When the video is playing, the play button should change to a pause button and vice versa. Also, why have skip forward and skip backward buttons? Also, why even have those buttons if it’s not a touch screen? Also, why label them if it’s clear to everyone what they do? The ui is so poorly thought out, there’s no way anyone with any experience in this sort of thing did it. Most likely, they told some video editing guy to make it look like she’s watching a makeup tutorial and he just made up the ui. So it’s either a rendering trying to pass itself off as legit, or they’re incompetent. Either way - I’m staying away. Also, the lady has clamped lights onto her mirror, but they don’t sell those lights with the mirror - could be a bit misleading. Also there’s no power cord visible. They probably just hid it but it’s worth mentioning. Maybe rendering isn’t the right word. I think that they took a regular mirror, filmed a lady putting on makeup in front of it, and then edited the video player in later. Idk if rendering is the right term, but

The gif of the basketball game looks legit to me. As in, I believe that they really had that displayed on the mirror. But I don’t believe for a second that this is an actual feature that they have ready. In addition to the other ui mistakes that I pointed out earlier (WHY HAVE A VIDEO BACK BUTTON), how could they have video forward on live tv? Also, how do you get live TV on the mirror? As someone who has some experience with these things, I know of no way to do that without a wired connection from the cable box. Sure, you can stream some stuff online, but the folks like ESPN and HBO Go who have online streaming do NOT have APIs that you could use to incorporate their stuff in your products. There is ZERO chance that they will be able to deliver on this feature unless they develop some sort of partnership with every content provider you happen to want to watch. But the fact that this feature is not under the “in development” category means that they’re telling us that this is a finished feature. Let me be clear, this is a lie. Up until now I was thinking “they’re either a scam or they are just idiots but it could go either way” but now I’m pretty confident that this is a scam.

They mention their “companion app” but they don’t show anything about it. Not even renderings or mockups. That’s because they haven’t even started working on it! This is a project that is clearly still in its infancy - not ready of kickstarter. They barely even have a prototype.

In the “personalized dashboard” gif, the live news widget has weird lines over it like when you film your television. Is it possible that they filmed their television and then used that footage to fake this prototype shot? It’s definitely possible but I don’t know enough to say with much confidence. Also, the playback buttons are missing this time. This product is a mess.

There are also a lot of problems with their software. Notice how the newspaper icon moves around when new stories are displayed (this is is the gif under “personalized dashboard”), the camera image moves when the countdown starts (this is the gif under “camera”). And remember, this is just what they’re showing us. This is as polished as this product gets. This product is an absolute mess and they’re only giving themselves two months (including this one) to fix this, develop the interface, and finish the “in development” widgets.

The 3rd party apps picture is a photorealistic rendering. The tech specs picture is a photorealistic rendering.

They’ve only shown us widgets and features but no interface. This is clearly a slapped together cash grab. They have a few low resolution photorealistic rendering and a misleading prototype.

The mirror is WAY too thin. My LCD computer monitor is thicker than the mirror. There is just no way they’re fitting a monitor (which is like 2-3 inches thick), glass (which is like ¼ inch thick), 2GHZ quad core processor and 2GB of ram, a camera, a speaker, and a microphone in a case that’s 2-3 inches thick that the very most. Their prototype is misleading at best and possibly faked.

Erik Skantz. There is no trace of him anywhere on the internet except for two SAT tutoring businesses and some article. He has no facebook, linkedin, twitter, etc as far as I can tell. He also claims to be a serial entrepreneur but all I can find about him is some lame tutoring business that I guess is now defunct and this new mirror thing. Weird, but not necessarily proof that he’s using a fake name or anything.

Antina Lee seems legit, but she describes herself as an “innovator and hustler” on her linkedin. Yuck.

Margarita Horta Osorio lives in London, and, as far as I can tell, has never been in the same state as any of the other team members. But granted, I didn’t look very hard. Also, I can’t imagine what she would even do at the company. She claims to have gone to the Rhode Island School of Design (which I have no reason to doubt - it’s probably true) so I would assume that she is doing their design (ui and so on) but given how poorly thought out their ui is and the fact that her portfolio (1, 2) is all art and no ui work, I have no idea what she does. Her linkedin lists her as an intern.

Stanley Hugh lives in Illinoise.

So bottom line, either this is a scam or they are so inexperienced and incompetent that the product they ship (if they even ship anything which is doubtful) will be so terrible as to be equivalent to a scam.