Internet of Mirrors for Connected Healthcare and Beauty: A Prospective Vision
Haneen Fatima, Muhammad Ali Imran, Ahmad Taha, Lina Mohjazi
TL;DR
The paper presents the Internet of Mirrors (IoM) as a unified, visual platform of interconnected smart mirrors to integrate health and beauty services. It details a three-layer IoM architecture (smart mirrors, connectivity, services) and surveys enabling technologies from skin imaging to edge-cloud computing, accompanied by five use-case scenarios. Key contributions include outlining novel IoM features, potential applications, and a candid discussion of challenges such as latency, interoperability, and privacy, along with directions for future research. The IoM concept aims to overcome fragmentation in beauty tech and elective healthcare by offering continuous, context-aware personalization and seamless professional integration in everyday settings. If realized, IoM could transform personal care, remote diagnostics, and smart living, bridging consumer experiences with clinical workflows in a scalable, privacy-conscious IoT ecosystem.
Abstract
With the shift towards smart objects and automated services in many industries, the health and beauty industries are also becoming increasingly involved in AI-driven smart systems. There is a rising market demand for personalised services and a need for unified platforms in many sectors, specifically the cosmetics and healthcare industries. Alongside this rising demand, there are two major gaps when considering the integration of autonomous systems within these sectors. Firstly, the existing smart systems in the cosmetics industry are limited to single-purpose products and the employed technologies are not widespread enough to support the growing consumer demand for personalisation. Secondly, despite the rise of smart devices in healthcare, the current state-of-the-art services do not fulfil the accessibility demands and holistic nature of healthcare. To bridge these gaps, we propose integrating autonomous systems with health and beauty services through a unified visual platform coined as the Internet-of-Mirrors (IoM), an interconnected system of smart mirrors with sensing and communication capabilities where the smart mirror functions as an immersive visual dashboard to provide personalised services for health and beauty consultations and routines. We aim to present an overview of current state-of-the-art technologies that will enable the development of the IoM as well as provide a practical vision of this system with innovative scenarios to give a forward-looking vision for assistive technologies. We also discuss the missing capabilities and challenges the development of the IoM would face and outline future research directions that will support the realisation of our proposed framework.