Duo smart mirror has ambitious plans for AI, its own app store, and more

By Lulu Chang April 14, 2017

Introducing Duo - an AI Computer for Your Home

Your mirror may not tell you who’s the fairest of them all, but it soon might be able to tell you a few other things — if your mirror is the Duo, that is. The AI-enabled, 27-inch smart mirror reportedly comes with built-in apps, its own app store, and natural language recognition. That’s not to mention multitouch capabilities, connectivity to smart devices, and multi-user support. So if you need a friend in the morning, you don’t have to talk to yourself in the mirror — just talk to your mirror.

Duo, which is already available for pre-order, has ambitious plans for its smart home device, including native apps that will tell you all about the day’s headlines, as well as play music (by way of the Spotify API). The company is also creating its own HomeOS platform, which is said to include lighting and temperature control for your whole house. There’s also talk of an independent app store that will host apps made specifically for the connected mirror, as well as voice-controlled apps for popular platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Giphy, so you can stay entertained while checking out your reflection.

While some of this may sound too good to be true, the company’s co-founder and CEO Jack Kim reached out to assuage some of our fears. For one thing, although Duo doesn’t appear on Lightspeed Venture Partners’ portfolio, the VC giant is in fact helping to fund the project. As Kim told Digital Trends, “We’re going through betaworks’ voicecamp program, which co-invests with Lightspeed and Launch Capital. It’s a relatively small investment so they don’t list it in their portfolio.”

Kim also cleared up another discrepancy in terms of the mirror’s capability — a video suggests that the Duo has 10-point multitouch, while its website suggests five-point multitouch. Kim explained, “HomeOS as an operating system is capable of up to 10-point multi-touch input. Our own hardware device provides five.”

If you’re interested in checking out the Duo, you may want to wait until October, when the product is supposed to go into production, to determine whether or not it’s worth the $399 price tag.

Article updated on 4-14-2017 by Lulu Chang: Added responses to concerns from Duo CEO and co-founder Jack Kim.

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