Alexa-Enabled Skincare Analyzing Smart Mirror Zmirror Debuts on Indiegogo
South Korean tech startup Icon.ai officially launched the Zmirror smart mirror on Indiegogo on Tuesday on sale for $199 instead of the official $420 for a limited time. The Zmirror performs like a specialized smart display and includes an Alexa-powered Harman Kardon smart speaker in the base and a skincare analysis and suggestion app.
Smart Reflection
The Zmirror’s seven-inch touchscreen within the nine-inch mirror has a color-changing backlight and is surrounded by an LED ring light with three variations to test your look in different settings depending on if you’ll be indoors or outdoors, for instance. The mirror can be rotated to face down, turning the device into a lamp. The lights can be activated by a wave in front of the mirror, and the lights and other settings can be adjusted and controlled by voice through the smart speaker integrated with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant in the base. 
Skincare is a major theme for the smart mirror, with the company suggesting it works great with YouTube makeup tutorials. The mirror comes with its own special skin health analysis ability too. The camera within the mirror takes a photo of your face and uses a database of more than 10,000 photos to analyze skin health, measured against people with similar skin tones. The resulting “skin score” can then be tracked with daily photos. The next addition will be recommendations for products and treatment regimens, which will be added this spring.
Smart Beauty
The Zmirror is an evolved form of the Venus mirror the company showed off in January at CES, which earned an Innovation Award. Since showing off that prototype, Icon has scored new partnerships and deals to improve the device. In May, the company was approved by Amazon as a system integrator for Alexa Voice Service, meaning Alexa could be fully integrated into the device. The approval by Amazon also means Icon can act as a supplier for customized hardware and software for devices using Alexa Voice Service. The startup is planning to offer a package for other third-party smart displays that want to use Alexa. The startup has been mostly self-funded, with an $850,000 pre-Series A investment by the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund (KODIT) and is currently raising a $3 million funding roundMost recently, the startup partnered with Harman Kardon to combine Harman’s smart speaker with the mirror’s technology.
“With Harman Kardon, we can further improve our revolutionary next-gen technology Smart Mirror, Zmirror’s epic sound quality, and thus our unique User Experience to a whole new level,” Icon CEO James Shin said in a statement. “With a long-term partnership with such an innovative and world-renowned company as Harman International, there are golden opportunities for us as a Tech start-up, so that we are going to conquer the market in 2021 with even more completely new products.”
Icon isn’t alone in exploring the potential of combining smart displays with makeup and beauty services. A year before the Venus at CES, HiMirror debuted its own version of a smart mirror that can assess skin health and leverage Alexa. More recently, digital beauty technology developer Perfect Corp. added voice commands and other new features to its virtual makeup tests available in stores. That aspect has become particularly important during the COVID-19 health crisis when stores can no longer have employees physically apply makeup to customers. In that case, it’s more about applying digital filters to see how the makeup would look on the customer’s face, but the central concept is similar. Any reflective surface could theoretically double as a smart screen. Mirrors in high-end boutiques and people’s homes could be just the start.
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