Simplehuman made a new mirror that can be both a lamp and Google Home speaker

Imagine a mirror that’s also your light source and music speaker. Huge space-saver or simply unnecessary? Simplehuman, the company that brought us smart mirrors and voice-activated garbage cans, has made two new mirrors that can light up and play music — the Sensor Mirror Hi-Fi and the Sensor Mirror Hi-Fi Assist — which were just announced at CES 2019.

Both mirrors can stream music from any service via connected devices using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The Mirror Hi-Fi Assist also supports Google Assistant, giving you additional voice commands for, say, adjusting the music or asking for the weather without the need for a Google Home device. The speakers on the mirrors deliver high-fidelity sound on 2.5-inch acoustic drivers that Simplehuman says can fill up a whole room.

Simplehuman made both mirrors with a proprietary light system that simulates natural sunlight. There’s also a night shift mode that gradually transitions into a dim light meant for sleeping, a candlelight mode, and a night light mode.

Simplehuman’s mirrors from 2016 supported Alexa, so it’s interesting that the Mirror Hi-Fi Assist only supports Google Assistant. For now, it feels like Google Assistant is an additional perk that doesn’t seem integral to the product.

In fact, both mirrors work best with the Simplehuman app, which adds much more functionality. It can help you set a timer for when you’re working on your daily skincare routine or hair styling before you run out of the house, and it allows you to adjust sound, lighting, and sensor activity. Do you really need a mirror to tell you the weather and play music when your smart speaker is only a few feet away?

This year’s mirrors bring some smarts to a common household item, but to some extent, they are merely iterations of what we saw in 2016. The new features are the speakers and the different light modes, but I’d imagine these are most useful if you need to save space in a small, cluttered home by using a mirror to substitute for a speaker and lamp.

The Sensor Mirror Hi-Fi and Hi-Fi Assist should be available this spring with a retail price of $350 and $400, respectively, on the Simplehuman website and at other retailers.