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Nanoleaf's New Touch-Enabled Canvas Offers Up Fun, Interactive Mood Lighting

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Nanoleaf's Canvas, launching today, is the company's second HomeKit-enabled mood lighting product that follows its popular triangle-shaped Light Panels. Rather than using triangle lights this time around, Nanoleaf designed the Canvas to have a square shape with multiple connector ports for more design versatility.

What's more, the Canvas is touch enabled and puts thousands of lighting scenes at your fingertips without the need to use an app. The app and HomeKit availability are still available though, offering up multiple ways to control the lighting panels.

nanoleafcanvasfullwall.jpg

Design

Unlike the iconic triangle design of the Light Panels, Nanoleaf has designed the Canvas with a new square shape. Each Canvas square measures in at just about six inches on all sides.

When conceptualizing the Canvas, Nanoleaf originally planned to offer plain squares with uniform lighting across, but this wasn't possible. Each square instead has a noticeable cross shape in it, dividing it into four. The individual squares still light up in one single color, but you will see the crosshairs within each one.

nanoleafsinglepanel.jpg

I don't mind the crosshairs and in some ways they make the Canvas more visually interesting, but it could be a turn off for customers who were hoping for flat, uniform lighting across the entire square.

There are eight Canvas Light Squares and one Control Square, which needs to be centrally situated and accessible to touch because it's the square that features specific touch-based controls for the entire Canvas system, though all squares respond to touch.

nanoleafcanvasoff.jpg

The Canvas squares are more versatile than the previous-generation Light Panels, with multiple connection points on each square to allow for a wider range of designs that are offset rather than fully connected at each side.

nanoleafcanvaspanelsback.jpg

Small rectangular connectors are used to connect two squares together, allowing for hundreds of designs. You get nine squares with the standard Canvas kit, and you can purchase an additional four with expansion kits that Nanoleaf is offering. Most of the photos in this review feature a total of 13 squares.

As with the Nanoleaf Light Panels, you can add on additional Canvas squares, up to 500 in fact, so you could theoretically cover an entire wall, though it would cost an absolute fortune.

nanoleafcanvascomparedtolightpanels.jpg
Canvas compared to Light Panels​

Canvas squares are attached to a wall with 3M adhesive like the previous-generation Light Panels. 3M adhesive is meant to be wall safe, but on certain walls, it definitely has the potential to cause damage, so that's something to be aware of. Because of the adhesive, it's best to decide on a design well ahead of time and a design that you can stick with for a long time because it is not convenient to re-arrange these squares.


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Article Link: Nanoleaf's New Touch-Enabled Canvas Offers Up Fun, Interactive Mood Lighting
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/review/nanoleaf-canvas-lights/
I have a set of the triangle ones in my computer room and they are awesome but as the article says, they do have a tendency to disconnect from the network and become unresponsive. I hoped that had been fixed with the square ones.
 
H.E. Pennypacker said:
Nano leaf is cool stuff, but it screams I’m a 21 year old bachelor with tacky taste.
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Totally agree. They're also WAY overpriced for what they are.
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Jaro65 said:
This is cool and likely could be great when combined with additional Philips Hue lights to create mood lighting. Alas, at $250 for 9 squares, I feel this is way too expensive.
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They are. RIDICULOUSLY expensive.
 
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It’s important to note that as configured in the lead photo for this article, it would cost $16,414.56 unless you got the preorder pricing which ended yesterday.

Personally I think the square ones with the cross in the middle look tacky. I think the triangle ones look better with their edge lighting—especially when arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner. I was interested in purchasing a set to do some pixel art on the wall of my new studio, but given the fact that they weren’t able to eliminate the center cross effect (which they said they were working on at CES for the final product and is probably why it was delayed) I may just pick up a triangle set the next time I see a deal.
 
pete2106 said:
I have a set of the triangle ones in my computer room and they are awesome but as the article says, they do have a tendency to disconnect from the network and become unresponsive. I hoped that had been fixed with the square ones.
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yes we lost both of ours completely I think when we upgraded phones. I had to scan them again into homekit. my wife is blind but can see colors. these are great for her because they are so visible over colored bulbs and other led products. Now the software will let you run them better much better scheduling that lets you control brightness.
 
The price is the only thing that keeps me from buying this product. As someone who has already replaced every light with smart led bulbs I’d love to use a few of these as accent lighting. However I can’t justify the price as a renter
 
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chucker23n1 said:
Anyone got actual suggestions for more affordable HomeKit mood lighting?
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Hue stuff is pretty great. You can get light strips (wait for a sale) and multiple kinds of bulbs. There's no other lighting solution that's similar to the Nanoleaf Canvas/Light Panels at an affordable price, though. In fact the only alternative is LIFX's tile, also priced at $250 for 5 tiles. I haven't tried it, but the reviews haven't been great.
 
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Very cool idea BUT it looks HELLA ugly

I'll stick with my HUE bulbs and adult looking fixtures for now
 
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So much fail here and not appealing at all.. maybe in a border around skirtings but those patterns are terrible.

I wasted so much money on the triangles - constantly having to reset, delete from app, re-add the lights, scan code on the back of controller, re-download all the scenes only to have it do the same thing days, or a week later. I went through all of their troubleshooting steps with a rep, router settings etc etc etc. 3 times. Then they blamed my modem etc etc etc. You would expect better service for that price.

They wouldn't even send me a new controller, I managed to get a new one in ANOTHER starter kit on sale, praying it would solve the problem and same thing. To hear they haven't solved connection issues is a huge red flag for this company.

Meanwhile my 20 hue light system and controllers work flawlessly.
 
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I like tacky stuff, I have a frosted glass desk in an L-shape with a strip of LED's going all around , a Razer keyboard and mousepad and a Gskill LED mouse but I'd never want that stuff up on my wall. Lighting from below, yay. Stuff on the wall, not really.
 
Mars56 said:
I like tacky stuff, I have a frosted glass desk in an L-shape with a strip of LED's going all around , a Razer keyboard and mousepad and a Gskill LED mouse but I'd never want that stuff up on my wall. Lighting from below, yay. Stuff on the wall, not really.
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indirect lighting is best. you should always have your normal style lighting and accent lighting like this is fine. if you can dim it that is. Overly bright led's can be too much especially with no diffusion.
 
jclo said:
Hue stuff is pretty great. You can get light strips (wait for a sale) and multiple kinds of bulbs. There's no other lighting solution that's similar to the Nanoleaf Canvas/Light Panels at an affordable price, though. In fact the only alternative is LIFX's tile, also priced at $250 for 5 tiles. I haven't tried it, but the reviews haven't been great.
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Especially wait for sales. $40-50 per bulb sounds like a hard pill to swallow, but the beauty of it is that you can add over time. Plus with the new starter kits coming with 4 bulbs now anyway, generally that's enough to mood light a room.

My apartment is basically two rooms. I stuck a $7 Ikea NOT in each corner with a Hue bulb in them and there you go. They bounce off the ceiling and light the entire room. Though with the living room I did put two more in the chandelier and a Light Strip Plus and Extension around the back of my TV, but still.

Ikea doesn't appear to sell the single bulb NOT anymore, so there's these:
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70145132/
 
What we need is for these to be popular so we start to get Uber cheap Chinese knock offs. Also, that setup pic with the whole wall lit up looks cool but I wouldn’t imagine you are going to see much on the TV apart from a big coloured reflection of the wall behind you. Plus 800 tiles is gonna cost £13k
 
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Finally the new panels come out - they were previewed for a while. Expensive as usual for Nanoleaf’s but I really like their older product so far.
We have three installations of the triangle light kits in different setups and while they are occasionally quirky they are also great fun. Wish they’d integrate with the Hue switches though - that would be awesome.
 
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