Hardware with a single purpose can be wonderful or woeful, it really depends on two things, how well it does its solo aim and does it do so with ease. Nanoleaf are nothing new, they have been around for sometime now, but the folks decided that they had to update the old design and have not got something else to show, while the Canvas has been out for a bit, but is it a truly illuminating experience or one that is burnt out already.

Nanoleaf, from a function standpoint can be described as a light, but that would be saying that a space shuttle is just a plane, both technically accurate, but also missing the most important information about them. At it’s core the Nanoleaf does in fact light up a space, but instead of just illuminating a space, it actually converts the space, by making it into a scene. Most lights will just illuminate, but being able to tell Nanoleaf to flicker like a fire or bathe a room as if light was piercing the canopy of a forest is what you can achieve with it and while some of the scenes created by folks are well of the mark, for the most part, if you can picture the way light works, you can replicate it, to a degree with Nanoleaf. The starter kit, which was supplied by Nanoleaf, comes with 9 tiles, but you can buy extras and have up to 30 pieced together without the need for additional power, but for every 30, you need more power and that is important, as you can have a massive 500 connected, should you have the desire to do so.

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Now the Canvas version of the Nanoleaf is just the same as the original design, now called Panels, or the upcoming Hexagon ones, in that it is a shape, that provides a colour, or series of colours. The big difference is that now the Canvas, adds in more functions that the original and lets you touch it, making the entire thing interactive. Each tile, which is 15cm by 15cm can be arranged in many ways, from a single straight line, to a wall, the patterns are really up to you and where you plan to have them placed. There is a control tile, where the power connects, which must be accessible, if you don’t plan on using your phone to control it, but the rest are open to your choices. You can also control it with touch, should that be something you are wanting to do, actual control is done with the buttons on the control panel, but you can touch them as well, to change the colours in the set you have active, it is really nice.

The way that they work is that there is a central LED in the middle of each panel and there are channels for light to push out from the middle and the light-coloured material that covers them, diffuses the light out. The effect is that you can see the light across the panel in a uniform way, though you will notice a stronger piece in the middle, which is to be expected, but even with that brighter space, it still manages to produce a vibrant pallet of colours. And speaking of colours, the range is quite large, you can come up with almost any colour you can think of, again, there are folks that have created scenes of colour and effects that are nice, but creating your own can be fun as well and with over 16 million colours to play with you should find something that works for you. One of the ones that I love to have play, each morning is the Sunrise effect, which goes off when my alarm does, and as I wake before the sun itself, I can get the effect of the sun rising with me.

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Another aspect that I really enjoyed using was that of the music function, not that it plays music, but instead hears sounds and then lights up, based on what it hears. This can be any sound, from a door closing, to kids laughing, but the one where it’s the most fun is when you play music, be it AC/DC, Dua Lipa or even Weird Al, as long as there is a beat, they light up. There is a little drawback, if the music is quiet and I don’t mean in volume, but a quiet song, it won’t get picked up, but if you are listening to music that is quiet and slower paced, it is likely you don’t want your space lit up like a disco. The fun thing is that you can still enjoy the lights, even at a slower pace and given there are many options for how they light up, you can easily find a pattern that works for you.

Now, all these things are fine of course, but you need to set the Nanoleaf Canvas up and this is where things got annoying but let me explain. The actual physical set up is very straight forward, unless you buy the wall mounting plates, the way you attach them is with the double-sided tabs that they provide, you place one side on the back of a plate and then on your wall of choice. The tabs are designed that if you pull the plates off the wall, they shouldn’t remove any paint, but if you place them wrong, they can remove right away as well, letting you try again. The only real consideration you need to be aware of is where the power lead will run, as you need that, thankfully the included power cable is very long, so it should not be that big of an issue. Once you have your control pad installed, the rest are done by just lining up where you want it to connect to, along the with the included link piece, though you need to be careful as the space between the wall and link pieces can be extremely narrow, making connecting them hard to do.

The problem comes in that in order to set it up, you need to use their app, which is not a problem, but as someone who has an iPhone, in order for me to begin the setup, I had to enable iCloud, install Homekit and allow them all to talk to each other. The fact that there is no mention of those requirements is an issue, but not the main, as once I had done all that and set it up, I deleted and turned off all those settings again and I can still use it without issue, which begs the question, why was it needed. As I don’t use iCloud at all, I spent a lot of time, trying to see if I could set it up, without needing it and while I had no issues in turning it on, the fact that I was required to, just to set it up was a big pain.

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Nanoleaf, as a product is not going to be for everyone, purely based on the type of product it is, but for those who want to light up a room, in ways that most people wouldn’t think of, then it is something to pay attention to. The sheer number of options available, with just the starter kit is amazing, and while some of the already made presets are questionable, the ability to make your own means you can get the scene set, just the way you want, add in some more panels and you are good to go. Nanoleaf is easy to recommend if you want to make a real form of functional art, it is easy to set up and fun to use, plus it is truly lit.