HiMirror Review

This post has been sponsored by the PRIMP Network. All opinions are my own.
As someone who loves both beauty and gadgets, I was super excited to try out the HiMirror, a smart mirror that utilizes technology to amp up your skincare routine. My husband and I seem to be acquiring every piece of technology we can to create a smart home. I was a huge fan of the Jetsons and between our Roomba, iphones with Siri, Nest thermostat, smart-phone controlled light switches, etc., I’m close to living the Judy Jetson dream.HiMirror photographs your skin, assesses it’s conditions and makes recommendations based on that. I’ve been trying this out for several weeks now and I’m going to share my thoughts with you. The story of how the HiMirror came to be is actually quite sweet. Simon Shen, CEO of a large Taiwanese electronics company, essentially invented the HiMirror to impress his wife Amanda and simplify her beauty routine.Appearance
The HiMirror is right at home with all of my other sleek, white devices. It’s attractive and non-obtrusive, but not so overtly feminine that husbands/boyfriends would be turned off from using it. It feels very sturdy and needs to be mounted to your chosen surface with included hardware or heavy duty adhesive. It does need to be plugged in and there will be a cord dangling from the left side.

Claims
HiMirror photographs your skin everyday, analyzing it for redness, dark spots, dark circles, fine lines, wrinkles and pores. It tracks improvements and declines, making recommendations based on them. The app allows you to scan in skincare products so that you can track what is working for you, or what is not. HiMirror uses facial recognition to enable multiple users to have accounts and syncs information with the accompanying app.

Cost
The HiMirror device retails for $189, or $229 right now as a special bundle with their Smart Body Scale.Functionality and User Experience
The mirror is controlled by either hand gestures or voice commands. This is the only way you can navigate through the menus, take photos of your skin, etc. I never did get the voice commands to work and the hand gestures were very finicky. Most of the time, the mirror did not respond to my hand gestures, despite trying every angle and position to make it work. When I did get it to respond, it’s not clear what did the trick. I swear the results varied each time. One day swiping left did one thing, the next day, something else. My hand started to hurt from keeping my fingers perfectly straight and my arm started to tire from waving it every which way. I also need to start lifting weights though.

The app was no picnic either. I had to install it 3 separate times due to it repeatedly crashing. When attempting to scan in my skincare, none of it was recognized so I tried to add products manually which failed every time. Only some of my skincare actually has bar codes on it and I rarely save the outside packaging so this will prove troublesome for barcode-less products.

Pros

• Attractive design
• Sturdy
• Very innovative concept
• Scale might be more useful
• 30 day money back guarantee
• Easy installation
• No need to charge

Cons

• The hand gestures are not seamless nor responsive enough for me to want to use the device
• Adds extra time to your daily routine
• The push gesture is the most difficult and rarely worked for me
• Mirror has a gray cast when not in use so I wouldn’t use as my vanity mirror for makeup application
• Requires cord and I would prefer a wireless device for aesthetic reasons

Suggestions

• I wish the app could be used as remote to control the mirror vs. hand gestures.
• It would be nice to be able to view and download the photos you take in the app

Final Thoughts
Though I love when beauty and tech meet and love the innovation this company is attempting, I can’t recommend HiMirror to you until multiple glitches are fixed. When user experience is impacted negatively by bugs and unresponsiveness, the product does the opposite of what it should, making your skincare routine simpler, thus life easier. I do look forward to trying the Smart Body Scale when I start a nutrition and exercise program in January. We desperately need a new scale so I’ll happily slide the Smart Body Scale in.