Nanoleaf Multicolour Outdoor String Lights make your backyard shine

This has felt like a particularly busy year for technology and innovation. Every month, I receive an item to review that looks like a common, off the shelf product but which is actually a technological marvel and an answer to prayers I didn’t know I had. With few exceptions, these products have been more robust, versatile, creative, intuitive and attractively designed than I expect them to be and leave me with a sense of wonder. On paper, today’s product promises to be all of that and more, Nanoleaf’s Multicolour Outdoor String Lights.

Yes, you heard right – outdoor string lights. Like the kind you might buy from a chain store at Christmas time that only just lasts the season and needs chucking. However, Nanoleaf insists that these lights are built to last and are useful year round. In this review, I’ll be looking at both the Starter Kit and the Expansion Pack.

 

First Impressions

Even before I open the box I can tell that these lights are built tough. While not difficult to carry, the box is moderately heavy and densely packed. Inside is a quick start guide and a huge coil of thick cables. 

At first glance, the cables seem messy. However, after taking the lights out and trying to put them back in again, I discovered they had actually been artfully coiled and arranged by a master packsmith. At the bottom of the box, each light is individually separated and protected by a thick foam sheet.

The lights themselves are really artfully designed. Sometimes, I think they feel like big versions of hobby LEDs or hipster Edison globes, while at other times they remind me of contemporary glasswork art pieces. Most of the time they look like precious gems or crystals with perfectly smoothed edges. From any angle, they are striking to look at and my pictures do not do them justice.

Set Up

Each light is attached to the main cable with a ‘T’ shaped connector and each connector has a very sturdy hanging point that can be attached to hooks, screws, cables or anything else you might have in your house. It’s clear that a lot of thought went into designing something that could be easily suspended in any location.

As with the varied mounting options, there are a wide variety of ways these can be set up to run in or outside your house. You can just plug it in and control it manually from a button remote near the power adaptor. Using this control you can select from a range of inbuilt ‘scenes’ or patterns of colour sequences and flashes. You can change the colours of each scene, increase or decrease the brightness and turn the lights on and off. 

However, these lights are capable of so much more. Firstly, there is an app. The Nanoleaf app allows you to connect the lights to your home WiFi and control them remotely using any Apple or Android Device. The app has so many creative features and controls that I feel I have only scratched the surface of it. I will detail some of these features in the next section.

Ultimately, a ‘smart home’ system is the optimal setup for any Nanoleaf product. Nanoleaf is a pioneer of smart home technologies having developed both Thread – a super fast and reliable networking technology, and Matter – software that enables smart devices to sync seamlessly with Apple, Google, Amazon and a range of other ‘smart home’ systems. 

Personally, I’ve always been uncomfortable about smart home technologies. I resent paying money to ensure that multinational corporations are always listening to me. However, a year ago, I was gifted a Google Nest Hub and have set it up so that it displays photos in the living room. I was eventually able to connect the Nanoleaf lights to my Google Home network and enjoy the full functionality of the lights. 

Ultimately, I did not find this process easy, but that may be because I had intentionally done a terrible job when setting up my Google Home in the first place. People who already regularly use smart home devices will probably find this process much easier than I did.

 

In Use

First things first, the lights are quite bright. I took this photo in my house while the sun was still up. The lights are so bright that the room looks dark in comparison. No matter what you are using to control the Nanoleaf lights, their brightness can be adjusted but I was so impressed with the brightness and the vivid colour from each bulb at full blast. 

The app is also really clever and intuitive. Through the app, you have complete control over the colour and warmth of all of the lights as a whole. As you fiddle with their colour palette and warmth toggle, you can see how the colours look on the lights in real time. Thanks to Thread, the connection is really quick and responsive. 

You can also cycle through an endless list of ‘scenes’ or colour combinations with colour sequences and flash patterns to suit any mood. Most of the scenes are designed to respond to beats in music as they are being played by your device. However, I found that this feature only works properly when the lights are fully connected to your smart home system.

My favourite feature of the app is that you can design your own scenes and share them with the Nanoleaf community. As you familiarise yourself with the controls, you can sequence the colours and warmths yourself and create a bespoke mood for your party. Most of my favourite scenes are those created by other users and some are really creative. The app also allows you to adjust the brightness of the lights and turn them on and off.

 

Gripes

Perhaps my distaste for smart home technology places me outside the target market for this device as it really does benefit from a robust smart home system. I plan to use them at my school to decorate the catwalk of a student fashion show. While the colours will dazzle and amaze the audience, I know that the lights won’t perfectly sync with the music.

I would also love for them to fit better in their box and be easier to transport. However, I recognise that some portability was sacrificed for durability in their design and that they are made to, ideally, stay in one place and survive the ravages of the great outdoors. 

Finally, they are priced for the impressive technology marvels they are, $199.99 AUD for the most basic package – the 15m Starter Kit. They are not priced to compete with $50 Christmas lights from K-Mart and definitely shouldn’t be. However, if you are looking for seasonal junk, these are not for you.

 

Conclusion

I never knew how much blinding and vivid colour in my backyard would make me happy. It really does. Nanoleaf Outdoor String Lights are beautiful to look at, even when they’re off. They are robust and easy to set up. Their controls are intuitive and fun to use – I love that I have joined a community of bespoke backyard light operators. They’re not cheap but will probably pay for themselves in the long run if you like a festive string light. Overall, they’re a great piece of new tech.

The Nanoleaf Outdoor String Lights starter pack runs for 15m has a RRP of AUD$199 or 30m at AUD$329.99 with each expansion pack at 15m for AUD$129.99.

DRN would like to thank Nanoleaf for providing the review unit.