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Nanoleaf Announces New Matter-Compatible Smart Bulbs and Lightstrips

Coffee50 said:
My Nanoleaf bulbs also work well (I moved from Hue). I just wish there were more products and availability.
Apart from the panels, there's the light strip and the A19 bulb. So I'm happy to see the GU10 & BR30 bulb introduced.

Hopefully new lighting accessories & options will follow in the future. I like not having that Hue Hub, but Hue definitely has them beat in lighting options.
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I've got Hue bulbs throughout the house, but one Nanoleaf Essentials bulb. They all work well and basically the same. They seem the same in Home app. But being able to avoid the Hue hub and use Thread or in the future Matter makes this an easy call for me: I'm going to add Nanoleaf bulbs when I have new A19 bulb needs. I'm certain to continue to have Apple TVs and Apple HomePods throughout the house, so I don't need an additional hub device. I'm one of those types that have a lot of Apple products and I'm quite confident that will not change for years and even decades to come.
 
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I have 3 Essentials bulbs (Edison base) and they work great, as long as I have 2021 TV 4k/ with thread.
I also stopped buying this year when they were wish-washy on Matter.

Matter has Thread but not all Thread has Matter. (Please correct me if I’m wrong)
 
I only have 2 bulbs A19 ATM and they’re great, but they did have the ”updating” issue (rarely). Firmware update recently fixed that issue.

I’m glad to have waited a bit, I wanted to get a lightstrip from them but guessed it was best to wait for Matter release and widespread Thread devices in the market in 2023. Nanoleaf are nice but they are not very luminous at full power and struggle with color quality below 5%, it feels like there is only 3 colors to choose from in low light.
 
That explains the big drop in the price of the Nanoleaf A19s I saw yesterday. Not sure I'd go with Nanoleaf after the mess they made with a recent Firmware update, but they are finally solid again and working.

Sure would be nice if the current models can be updated via firmware, but that's probably too much to ask. Though Eve has said some of their recent devices are already waiting for Matter to be released. Looks like a month from no my Eve Energys are gonna get an update!
 
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Very excited for this! Love my Nano Leaf setup, and the quality and customer service have been great.

My Philips Hue products, on the other hand, have been nothing but buggy and customer service has been awful. I cannot wait to ditch Hue.
 
I like Nanoleaf's A19 bulb. The lightstrip I like much less. I was trying to execute a more finicky solution where the strip would border the inside of the mantle to create a nice indirect lighting effect. I simply could not pull off the modifications to get these strips to fit in the right angle brackets. They have a needless soft plastic cover that is a PITA to deal with and the strip itself doesn't quite fit any angling adapters I could find. Furthermore, the cut points on the Nanoleaf strips are much too widely spaced. I can't remember the length but it was dramatically longer than other smart or dumb strips.

If you're doing smart strips, I'd just bite the bullet on Phillips Hue because there is a robust set of 3rd party adapters and such for doing more nuanced (good) applications of strips.
 
I bought the shapes to set up a gradual fade up in the morning — a graceful fake sunrise — which wakes me up without jarring me awake. Plus I could use Siri and a HomePod to turn them on and off or set the color.

I’d like to go back to that but the panels no longer function.

It means I’m back to my previous alarm setup — an iPhone 3s I’ve kept solely for use as an alarm clock. It will be happy to have a purpose again.
 
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tubular said:
Oddly enough this comes just as I'm wrestling with some Nanoleaf lights. A few months back my cable company replaced my modem, and although I didn't know it at the time, they've locked me out of the 2.4 GHz bandwidth Nanoleaf needs for configuration. As in, going into the modem's configuration app doesn't even offer a choice of bandwidth -- thou shalt run 5 GHz. The Nanoleaf shapes can *run* on 5GHz, apparently, but they need 2.4 GHz to *configure.* And it seems that there was something about the newest collection of iOS and HomePod updates that my lights found indigestible, knocking them out. And so only now, months after the new modem, am I finding I can't reconnect the shapes.

It looks like the cheapest solution is to buy a cheap 2.4GHz wireless router and add it to my system. Which is kinda ridiculous to have to do.

Nanoleaf -- I really like your stuff, when I can use it. Please support configuring on 5GHz.
Click to expand...
If you have a Mac that is connected to ethernet you can share internet over wifi to generate a 2.4 network. Using your iphone as a hotspot will likely work as well.
 
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ChedNasad said:
If you have a Mac that is connected to ethernet you can share internet over wifi to generate a 2.4 network. Using your iphone as a hotspot will likely work as well.
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I should definitely give that a try. I’m worried that this means configuring it in one network to control it with another, though, which might be a long shot.
 
zapmymac said:
I have 3 Essentials bulbs (Edison base) and they work great, as long as I have 2021 TV 4k/ with thread.
I also stopped buying this year when they were wish-washy on Matter.

Matter has Thread but not all Thread has Matter. (Please correct me if I’m wrong)
Click to expand...

I’m confused about this. If I have Thread-compatible Nanoleaf (or other) stuff, is there my benefit replacing with Matter-compatible stuff if I use HomeKit which supports both? None of this is terribly clear.
 
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twistedpixel8 said:
I’m confused about this. If I have Thread-compatible Nanoleaf (or other) stuff, is there my benefit replacing with Matter-compatible stuff if I use HomeKit which supports both? None of this is terribly clear.
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Thread is a transport protocol, Matter is an application protocol.

Matter is "further up the stack"...Thread is just a way to make a local mesh network.

Think of Thread like Wifi. Think of Matter like a piece of software that uses network connectivity.
 
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SalisburySam said:
I wish all the things that said they were Homekit compatible were actually Homekit compatible. Lots of things work for awhile, or work until the next network outage then don’t, or work until the next router update then don’t, or never worked to begin with despite advertising HK compatibility (I’m looking at you Rachio3 irrigation controller). And most of my device manufacturers say all that is necessary for a “No Response” device is to power them down (unplug them) and restore power (plug them back in after a few seconds). Sure, that usually works. But the point of smartplugs at least is to not have to do that. Mine are behind furniture or other inaccessible places; that’s the point of using them. Very frustrating. And a whole lot harder with wall switches.

I’ve ordered a couple of Nanoleaf LED bulbs for wall sconces that do not have a switch to control them. Should arrive today. We’ll see what new agony they bring to the table.

I really miss the X-10 devices of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s. They were reliable for me and the power lines were the network.
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Is this the X-10 company you're talking about? https://www.x10.com/

It looks like they're still around if so.
 
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Just spent more time trying to wrangle the shapes, and the controller refused to hard-reset. So now I'm waiting on a replacement.

At this point, I'm very frustrated. These weren't cheap toys and all that I was asking for was that they did what it says on the box. They were absolutely great until they were absolutely useless.
 
unsertwegen said:
Is this the X-10 company you're talking about? https://www.x10.com/

It looks like they're still around if so.
Click to expand...
Yup, that’s them. May have to resurrect my old ones and switch over to these devices. One of the issues with power line devices was you had difficulty across load centers (circuit breaker boxes). You had to use bridge devices inside both load centers to get across from one to another. Current home has 5 load centers making this kinda impractical, though most of my smartplugs are for circuits on one load center so should work.

Thanks for finding this. I thought they went out of business decades ago.
 
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tubular said:
I bought the shapes to set up a gradual fade up in the morning — a graceful fake sunrise — which wakes me up without jarring me awake. Plus I could use Siri and a HomePod to turn them on and off or set the color.

I’d like to go back to that but the panels no longer function.

It means I’m back to my previous alarm setup — an iPhone 3s I’ve kept solely for use as an alarm clock. It will be happy to have a purpose again.
Click to expand...
Why don’t they function? Just get a new controller if it somehow fried
 
So, got my two Nanoleaf A19 Thread bulbs, screwed them in, initialized them with the tiny separate QR code included in the box, and they work better than any switches/smartplugs I’ve got. Control through the Home app on my iPhone7 is instant, accurate, and just works. First time I’ve been this satisfied with ANY Homekit device.

I also just got last Friday my new AppleTV4K, also with Thread and set up as a Homekit hub. So now I have the AppleTV, the two Nanoleaf bulbs, one WeMo light switch, and seven WeMo smartplugs all with Thread. The WeMo’s all take several seconds to activate though for whatever reason as opposed to the instant action of the Nanoleafs. I see getting rid of the WeMo’s soon and instead just using more Nanoleaf bulbs instead of smartplugs. As a side benefit, I’m guessing (hoping) more Thread devices will increase the performance of each Thread device in the home.
 
SalisburySam said:
Yup, that’s them. May have to resurrect my old ones and switch over to these devices. One of the issues with power line devices was you had difficulty across load centers (circuit breaker boxes). You had to use bridge devices inside both load centers to get across from one to another. Current home has 5 load centers making this kinda impractical, though most of my smartplugs are for circuits on one load center so should work.

Thanks for finding this. I thought they went out of business decades ago.
Click to expand...
Glad I could help. :)
 
SalisburySam said:
So, got my two Nanoleaf A19 Thread bulbs, screwed them in, initialized them with the tiny separate QR code included in the box, and they work better than any switches/smartplugs I’ve got. Control through the Home app on my iPhone7 is instant, accurate, and just works. First time I’ve been this satisfied with ANY Homekit device.

I also just got last Friday my new AppleTV4K, also with Thread and set up as a Homekit hub. So now I have the AppleTV, the two Nanoleaf bulbs, one WeMo light switch, and seven WeMo smartplugs all with Thread. The WeMo’s all take several seconds to activate though for whatever reason as opposed to the instant action of the Nanoleafs. I see getting rid of the WeMo’s soon and instead just using more Nanoleaf bulbs instead of smartplugs. As a side benefit, I’m guessing (hoping) more Thread devices will increase the performance of each Thread device in the home.
Click to expand...
Do your bulbs get crazy hot? The one I bought to try did and I ended up returning in part because of that. I've read about some fire hazard issues with other nanoleaf products
 
ChedNasad said:
Do your bulbs get crazy hot? The one I bought to try did and I ended up returning in part because of that. I've read about some fire hazard issues with other nanoleaf products
Click to expand...
I’d say they get warm, nothing like “crazy hot.” No issue touching them with bare fingers, no sizzle, no 3rd-degree burns, ceiling doesn’t catch on fire, etc.
 
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