Nanoleaf Beta Updates Create HomeKit Buttons From Canvas Tiles

Nanoleaf, the Canadian based smart lighting company responsible for the Aurora Light Panels, Nanoleaf remote, and more recently the Nanoleaf Canvas, have issued beta updates to both the Canvas and the Nanoleaf app. Nothing strange in that you might say, but what the updates seem to have brought is an amazing new step forward with the Canvas, which up until now were, merely touch sensitive, allowing you to change colours or trigger a preset colour pattern.

With the new update, each tile can now, in fact, to be programmed to be a true HomeKit button. Yes, you read that right – each tile can now be programmed like any other switch, thus giving you access to single, double and long presses. If you multiply that by the number of Canvas tiles you may have, and that’s a lot of buttons!

The video above displays the user triggering a lighting scene totally separate to the Nanoleaf canvas, with the change of colour coming from a Philips Hue bulb. The change is noticeable on the wall around the Nanoleaf installation, where the user changes the room lights from red to white and back.

Aside from this major upgrade in usability, the update also allows users to backup and restore their data via Nanoleaf’s own Cloud sync system. You will now be able to restore all the settings for the device with the Nanoleaf app, after doing a hard reset. While it could probably have been predicted there would be additional functionality, given the panels were already touch-sensitive, to add the ‘single – double -long press’ functionality really has taken things in a new direction. Time to open the wallet…

Thanks to mszfcz for the video and screenshots.