New Nanoleaf Products and Some Surprises…

Nanoleaf has announced a raft of new products, some of which have previously been touted, namely their Matter Smart Holiday String Lights, which were actually announced last October. Still, there are plenty of new devices to look at, including the Nanoleaf Blocks.

On the surface, these may look much like previous product the company has sold, namely the Nanoleaf Canvas. However, the ‘Blocks’ differ in some significant ways.

The first, and obvious difference is the fact that there are five ‘Blocks’ to choose from, with a basic ‘Square’, and ‘Textured’ square, a ‘Light Pegboard’, a ‘Shelf’, and a ‘Small Square’ that is essentially 25% the size of the standard Square. like the Canvas, and all of their other lighting products, these offer up to 16 million colours, and can connect to one another to form a sort of patchwork of lights.

In the case of the blocks, which we also saw with Nanoleaf’s ‘Shapes’, you can mix and match these different options to create something less uniform, and more organically shaped. With the Shelf option, you can place your favourite models, phone, mini speakers etc on them, with the limit for support set at 1.5kg in weight. The Pegboard option, which offers the hooks as a separate purchase, you have the option yo support up to 3kg in weight. The Textured Blocks appear to have a more three dimensional aspect to them, that should add an extra layer of interest to your lighting setup.

The one thing that may surprise many, is that the Blocks do not currently support Matter, and may never actually do so. In one sense, it won’t matter (no pun intended) to Apple Home users, but for Google, SmartThings, and Alexa users, who are trying to go all in on Matter, you’re going to have to return to a cloud-based option for getting these into your smart platforms. This is an odd choice, given that the company started off as one of the early adopters of both Matter and Thread, but are seemingly backing away from both to varying degrees of late; Their 4D TV light strip combo only offered a standard WiFi connection, as does their Nanoleaf Skylight. Add to this the company now releasing Matter over WiFi Essential Bulbs and Multicolour light strip, when Thread was fine, although it’s always good to have the choice I suppose. That all said, there is a possible silver lining…

Nanoleaf’s announcement of a wireless controller/button/switch took us by surprise, but only for the fact that previous announcements from the company regarding controllers seems to have come to nothing. Back in 2020 the company unveiled a very odd looking device as part of a yet to materialise ‘Learning Series’, which included technology dubbed U-IQ. Whatever the reason, Nanoleaf now have a new wireless remote – the Sense+ Smart Switch – that offers 5 buttons. In terms of size, it does appear to be similar to the Wemo Stage Scene Controller, but is designed in the first instance to work best with Nanoleaf’s own lighting products. The top and bottom buttons act as on and off switches, whilst the middle button acts as a dimmer. It also has two programmable buttons on either side of the aforementioned dimmer, which can be programmed in Apple Home to control non-Nanoleaf products. Two major plusses with Nanoleaf’s offering is that it also comes with both light and motion sensors, which both help to turn on the relevant Nanoleaf lighting in a room, as well as adjust according to how much light is in said room.

The other surprise is that whilst this switch will use Matter over Thread (currently via something called ‘Matter Early Access, which sounds distinctly beta…) it also offers connectivity via a new Nanoleaf protocol called ‘Litewave’ that allows the switch to connect directly to Nanoleaf products, which would be useful in a Nanoleaf home without Thread, but it does seem a little pointless otherwise. Still, if they’re offering this with Matter over Thread, it’s all good, especially at a reasonably inexpensive US$26.99 (plus shipping).