Nanoleaf Lights

The Memories section of Facebook is awash with big events for me in June. There are happy memories of becoming European Triathlon Champion and not such happy memories of a massive heart attack. Anna decided to celebrate the fact that I’d survived the latter, and that I was still here by buying me a present. Some new Nanoleaf Shape smart lights.

They are really cool and have quite a few features that I’ve yet to fully explore, but I already want more! They obviously act as lights, but are more of an artistic installation feature really. They are also ‘smart’ so can be controlled via Alexa, as well as via Apple Home Kit, Google Home etc. If there is music on they’ll respond to the track and flash in time with it. They are also light sensitive so can dim/brighten based on the ambient lighting at any time. In addition to that they are touch-sensitive so you can use gestures on them to change scenes, dim them etc etc. You can even program different gestures on each of the panels and use them to control other smart devices in the house.

You can of course schedule them to do certain things at certain times and embed them into routines within other smart apps. Coupled with IFTT or the API that they have built into them you can do all sorts of things with them. I’ve yet to have time to get them fully connected and therefore haven’t explored all of these features, but the best part about them is the fact that they just look really cool!

Having just refurbished the conservatory my initial thought was to put them out there. They’d look really good there and would be useful too as we don’t have any atmospheric lighting in that room, just some very bright LED lights in the ceiling. I’m not sure how much we’ll use that room when it’s darker though and we might not therefore see them much. Instead, I decided the kitchen would be a good spot for the, We’ll see them all the time and the wall below the cabinets could do with a bit of a feature.

That’s where I’ve put them and as you can see, it might be nice to add a few more. They aren’t cheap though so I’ll wait until they are fully set up and see how useful they are before taking the plunge and adding to them. I have a feeling I’ll end up adding to them with a larger 9-panel starter kit and a 10 panel mini-triangle kit. That way I’ll be able to extent the display in the kitchen and put one in the conservatory as well!

Tags: Home