Nanoleaf's new smart lights aren't just for Christmas

Nanoleaf Christmas lights
(Image credit: Nanoleaf)

Twinkling fairy lights are the mainstay of the holiday period. Stick them on the Christmas tree to really make that tinsel shine, put them up around the house to bring some festive spirit — a house without softly color-shifting tiny lights is a house that forgets the love of the season.

Nanoleaf, maker of some of the best smart lights around, wants to make the festive season smarter, with a new set of smart fairy lights that aren’t just for Christmas — but they’ll sure make the period more fun.

Ensmartening the Holidays

You could never call ‘holiday string lights’ boring — it’s a wire with colorful lights down the sides that glow in different, often changing colors. That just oozes fun. What you can say is that they aren’t smart. Plug them in and press the on button, and off to festive bliss you go.

Nanoleaf’s new string lights bring the smarts, with addressable RGB, and scheduling so that the lights can go on and off at certain times. It’s weird it's taken the company so long to get them out, but now they’re here, lighting the house in the most wonderful time of the year just got a whole lot more fun.

The lights use ninety percent less energy than old incandescent bulbs, with LEDs all the way down the wires. There are loads of lighting modes accessible through the Nanoleaf app, including some festive-themed ones like ‘crackling fireplace’ to really up the ambience. They’re interactive too, so they’ll jump along while watching Home Alone for the seventh time in two weeks. Link them up to Siri and HomeKit, and command your Christmas lights to change color with Siri.

Once the Holiday season is over, don’t pack them back in the box and put them in the loft for next year. Avoid the yearly lights detangling, and put them up around the house or outside for some extra, addressable ambience — after all, lights aren’t just for Christmas.

Get yourself a pair on the Nanoleaf website for $119/£119, with orders shipping from October 31st.

Tammy Rogers
Senior Staff Writer

As iMore's Senior Staff writer, Tammy uses her background in audio and Masters in screenwriting to pen engaging product reviews and informative buying guides. The resident audiophile (or audio weirdo), she's got an eye for detail and a love of top-quality sound. Apple is her bread and butter, with attention on HomeKit and Apple iPhone and Mac hardware. You won't find her far away from a keyboard even outside of working at iMore – in her spare time, she spends her free time writing feature-length and TV screenplays. Also known to enjoy driving digital cars around virtual circuits, to varying degrees of success. Just don't ask her about AirPods Max - you probably won't like her answer.