Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the most acne-prone of them all? “RHETORICAL QUESTION LOL” I’m thinking bitterly, staring into this week’s device. HiMirror Mini Premium (€259 [£240], himirror.com) is a smart surface that analyses your skin, presenting a breakdown of wrinkles, red spots, dark spots, dark circles, fine lines, pores and roughness. Every day for a week I have been looking into this pitiless oracle – and the news is never good. I may have hidden depths, but my sallow is all too visible. The mirror keeps flashing up bits of rude advice, telling me to get more calories from peanut butter, or informing me my outer skin “loses moisture easily, as it is composed of the oldest and driest cells”. Right to my face. It might as well be calling me Ol’ Wonken Chops.

In its favour, HiMirror is technically mesmerising. You line up your face to a virtual mask and it snaps a picture of you to analyse. The mirror is a mirror – unless you choose to magnify your face by x2 or a horrific x3, in which case it switches to a tablet-style camera in selfie mode. It displays weather and news snippets. (Deeply weird to be given the latest on Kashmir when obsessing over your pores.) You can connect to Spotify and watch beauty tutorials on YouTube.

I’m a sucker for this kind of fluid futurism – and, unlike many overengineered devices, it works beautifully. When I turn it on, a purple sprite formed of bubbles winks at me, as if I’m taking a wee break from reality. By default, the sides of the mirror illuminate in clear white, although they turn warm and orange if you select the “Makeup studio” option. You can even try virtual makeup effects using augmented reality.

The interface is stunning. My face, however, is not. It’s hard, being informed how rough you are on a daily basis, that you rate “poor” for dark spots but “average” for wrinkles. This information is tracked via projected graphs. The data is meant to indicate whether your skincare regime is working, which many people will love. As far as I’m concerned, the mirror might as well be shouting: “Come get some ham, Fatty Boom-Boom,” first thing in the morning.

It gets worse. The company also offers a suite of accessories with which the mirror can communicate – including the Smart Body scale (€119, himirror.com). “You are underfat and with little muscle,” the mirror tells me after they have a little conversation. It flashes up a stick drawing of a man with a tiny arse. I have never been so insulted. It also claims I weigh 6st 12lb (44kg), which can’t be right – the tureen of chilli I ate last night weighed about that – yet I spend two days walking around wondering if it’s true. (In fact, I had the scale on a carpet, which threw off the reading. Proper readings, on a hard surface, reveal that I weigh just more than 10st and have 9lbs of bone; that I am slightly fat, 64% water and 8% nachos. OK, not that last one.) “You are standard,” the proper readout reveals. “With little muscle.”

None of this is a healthy way for anyone to think of themselves. Body fat and basal metabolic rate may be interesting to gym bunnies, but should we care what our muscle mass, bone weight or water percentage is? You are not training for Tokyo 2020. You can like yourself without those numbers, or hate yourself when you are “winning”. It is impressive how the scale reads body composition from only an electric current, but frankly it is too much data. Staring at the chasm between yourself and your beauty ideals won’t bring you any closer to achieving them. If x3 magnification isn’t enough, how about x6, or x160? If you don’t like yourself, there will always be more ground to make up.

From an engineering perspective, HiMirror is extraordinary. You could lose hours with it. Is such a use of time more important than nurturing your abilities and talents? Give me strength. And a bigger arse.

No offence to Vince

The mirror and the scale both require a mains connection, which is just too much cable. I’m falling over myself, but not to recommend this.

Wellness or hellness?

Mirrorballs to it all. 2/5