REVIEW: NANOLEAF LIGHTSTRIPS STARTER KIT – October 2021

Shane | 27 October 2021 | Reply

REVIEW: NANOLEAF LIGHTSTRIPS STARTER KIT – October 2021
By Shane Pinnegar

Nanoleaf recently sent me one of their relatively new Lightstrips Starter Kits to assess, and I can attest that it is a huge leap forward for groovy mood lighting for your office, bar, chillout room or – and here’s where it gets really interesting – stage or studio.

The Starter Kit ain’t cheap – a two-meter strip costs $99.99 here in Australia – but it is bright enough to very effectively change the mood in the room of your choice. It has a 3M adhesive backing strip allowing you to fix it in your preferred location, but I chose to simply hang it from a hook in my garage bar doorway rather than commit to a final resting place.

The strip has a controller at the electrical plug end, and the other end has a socket, presumably to plug another strip into to extend the length of the light strip.

One uses the controller – or the Nanoleaf app – to choose the colour and brightness, and mostly it works well, though my app froze a few times here and there. I found it easier to use the controller to adjust settings, but I’ve always been more of an analogue guy.

It would be nice to see additional settings to make the lightstrip easier & cooler to use, such as allowing the lights to flash or the colours to cycle through the rainbow, and I’m sure these will be refined as the product develops.

Most exciting for me is the possibilities of Nanoleaf’s products – which also include hexagonal and triangular panels which affix to walls, amongst other options – in creative spaces. These have the potential to revolutionise stage and studio lighting for creators and performers of theatre, music and art.

Whilst Nanoleaf’s products aren’t super cheap yet, as with all tech they will probably come down in price as the tech develops and becomes more ubiquitous – which they have the potential to do rapidly.

Nanoleaf’s Lightstrips Starter Kit gets a big thumbs up from me, and I shall be monitoring their tech to see what new advancements are made in the coming months and years to further revolutionise creative spaces.