Nanoleaf Smart Lamp - Review

As far as innovative tech companies go, Nanoleaf is up there, at least if it involves lights to some degree. A lot of what they have offered over the years are more akin to wall lights, giant sets of panels that you can use to transform a space. But now they are getting into more low-key options, they have done this with the Pegboard Desk Dock and now the Floor Lamp. Does this latter release make you scream that you love lamp?

When I got the box for this one in the mail, I was not sure exactly what to make of it, here was a lamp, but came in a box smaller than my PlayStation 5 console. Cracking it open, the largest piece was that of the base, which was fairly hefty. The next piece to unpack was the light strip itself, which was a fair chunky piece of flexible LEDs and under all that were the metal casing parts. Putting it all together was equal parts easy and frustrating, the easy was in how the pieces all snapped together. There is one dedicated top piece, as it has a cap on one end and two connecting pieces, a few screws and connecting plates and you have a pole. Attaching it to the base was also quite simple and I had hopes that connecting the light strip would be just as straightforward, it was not.

Where I got into trouble with the light strip was in connecting it and putting it in place. The connection between the strip and the base is easy, you just line up the two ends and push them together, where things fell apart though was with tucking it away. The light strip took a bit of force to get it into the grooves of the pole, but that was easy compared to the bottom, no matter how much force I applied, I just could not get that little bit to tuck down in, like the instructions say it is meant to. Unless you go looking for it, you would never know and it does not impact the functionality in anyway, but I know it is there and it irks me.

The actual using of the light is somewhat straightforward, there is a control box on the cable, so you can operate the base functions from that. But, if you pair it with the Nanoleaf app, you can unlock more functions, including scene pre-sets. The pre-sets are the reason you would want the app, because you can have things like a candle flickering or sunset and it does look great. You can use the box to access those scenes, but you just have to cycle through them. Now if you opt not to use the app and just run from the box, you can have access to brightness controls and scene selection. There is also a dedicated button for the music mode. This mode offers up three colour presets and it just reacts to sounds, so if you love to sing acapella, it will work, though music works best.

The main reason for you to have this lamp, is for the ambiance, because that is what is for. It does provide a decent amount of light if you are sitting near it, to the point where you could read a book or play a GameBoy under it. However, if you are looking for a light that will, light up a room in full, this is not for that. Like most lamps, the purpose is to illuminate a small area and this does that very well. The ability to change colours, either through scenes or solid colours is nice, which again embraces that ambiance aesthetic. Just know that if you want to cycle through colours to find that perfect blue or pink, it is not the fastest, it will take a bit of time.

The Nanoleaf Matter Smart Multicolour Floor Lamp is an exceptional little unit. It does exactly what you need it to do; it lights up a small area of a room and projects some nice colours throughout as well. This is not going to light up a room in full, but it is not designed for that, but if you want to add some colour to a space, without throwing loads of panels on a wall or rewiring your entire room, this is a great option.

The Score

8.5

Review unit provided by Nanoleaf

The Pros

Decent number of lighting presets means you can turn it on and enjoy right away

Being able to control via the box, without the app is a real plus...

The Cons

… but the app does have more settings, which sadly makes it needed

Could not get the light to setup as per the instructions, due to some stiff cabling