![]() Thread promises to be the foundation for the next generation of smart home networks, with increased responsiveness across the board. One of the bigger things I was looking forward to with the Shapes tiles was finally having a Thread border router in the house. Govee’s Hexa Glide light panels were able to diffuse the light better as well. These LEDs were better hidden in their Canvas tiles. The source of light is really clear in the Nanoleaf Shapes at the tip of each triangle point. My experience with Govee lights produced slightly more jagged results, and Philips Hue lights don’t even provide animations out of the box. Nanoleaf Shapes earn particularly high marks for smooth transitions between colors. Saturation is versatile enough to cover muted tones and wacky neons equally well. In terms of lighting quality, Nanoleaf Shapes deliver even colors with sufficient brightness. This catalog is markedly richer than what you see with Philips Hue, though Govee’s DIY section is about on par. These range in types from solid colors to music syncing to set animation cycles. Nanoleaf provides a rich selection of user-generated light recipes to peruse and the tools to cook up some of your own. Third parties like IFTTT, SmartThings, and Razer have plug-ins that give even more utilities. A microphone in the control module lets the lights react to music in real time. You can use voice commands via Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa to control them. You can set schedules so they turn off and on at certain times of the day. You can set them to a bewildering range of colors. Nanoleaf Shapes tick all of the boxes you would expect from a modern smart light. If you do end up getting industrious with your extensions, you’ll need to be mindful of the power supply, since the packaged one can only handle so many lights. Potential buyers will need to wonder if it will be worth investing in the ecosystem if the connectors are likely to change in a few years. This new Connect+ format was a little easier for installation, but it is a strike against the big selling point of the platform’s modularity. That said, the connector type on the Shapes was different than my Canvas tiles. Multiple connection points allow you to build and extend your Nanoleaf collection incredibly easily with a wide range of Nanoleaf Shapes extension kits. Since I’m old and boring, a single diagonal line is about as exciting as my design sensibilities get, but the options are really astounding. Otherwise having to dig around for pairing codes is a bit of a hassle. I’ve found NFC pairing inconsistent in the past, but glad to have it working smoothly with the Shapes panels. After that, there’s a little communication to feed the lights your Wi-Fi password. NFC pairing lets you simply tap your phone to the panel to kick things off. Once the lights are on the wall and the power is plugged in, the app gets involved with pairing. Without some hand-holding, it’s easy to imagine a novice forgetting to put a linker in before applying a tile on the wall. For example, Govee will go through everything step-by-step: First, measure your space, now put your linkers in, now put the adhesive sticker on, now press and hold the tile on the wall, and so on. For someone who has already set up light tiles in the past, it’s easy to breeze through the process, but the app really needs a wizard for installation. Too bad it was nowhere to be seen on Android. Though a somewhat advanced feature like that has a lot of potential to go awry, I found it quite accurate. The iOS version has an augmented reality viewer that projects the layout at scale onto your wall so you can figure out measurements and fit. The app has a Layout Assistant to help figure out your design, including a shuffle mode that takes the number of tiles you have and puts them into a working configuration. The instruction booklet was laid out like it came out of an Ikea box, primarily using illustrations. Beside my Shapes array, the old pock-marks left behind by less kind adhesives hammered home my appreciation for the current standard. ![]() I’m feeling more confident about the wider, bigger adhesives that the Shapes tiles ship with. The Canvas tiles had ugly tabs sticking out the side, and there were widespread reports that the included adhesives didn’t last. The Shapes mounting plates are also a little recessed, so the sticky pads stay flush with the hardware. Mounting plates let you remove the tiles from the wall so you can deal with the adhesive pull-tab separately. Set up of Nanoleaf Shapes was a big upgrade from my last run with its Canvas tiles.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |