Nanoleaf: Smart switches, Ambilight system, and Matter support announced at #CES2023!

Nanoleaf, now renowned for its innovative and connected mood lighting, unveiled many new products at CES 2023. First up, its very first smart switches: Sense Plus. These switches are truly smarter than the competition, as they feature built-in sensors designed to learn your lighting habits! Next came a system similar to Ambilight for TVs, as well as support for the Matter protocol.Nanoleaf Sense Plus Control: Truly Smart Switches

First announced at CES 2020, Nanoleaf's Sense Plus Control smart switches took more than four years to come to fruition. The company started out using Bluetooth mesh but switched to Thread to take advantage of its lower power consumption, lower latency, and more reliable mesh. But then came the rollout of Matter. Now that the new interoperability standard for the smart home has arrived, Nanoleaf is finally ready to launch its own revolution. Smart lighting isn't that smart. What it should be is lighting that knows what kind of light you need, when you need it, and does it for you. We want to evolve smart lighting into intelligence, into the ability to make decisions for you, instead of just remote control. But we didn't want the system to turn the lights off at the wrong time, or worse, turn them on at the wrong time.”

Mr. Chu, CEO of Nanoleaf

These Matter-compatible, Thread-powered lighting controls feature built-in motion and ambient light sensors. They're designed to work with another new product, Nanoleaf's Nala Learning Bridge, which acts as a hub for these smart switches to intelligently learn and adapt your lighting to your home's routines.

Each switch, of course, features an on/off button and a dimming slider (a touch wheel on the wired switch and an up/down button on the wireless switch). There are also two other buttons that can be set to perform various functions, such as cycling through preset Nanoleaf scenes or activating predefined circadian lighting. Using built-in infrared motion sensors and ambient light sensors, and learning algorithms powered by Nala, Nanoleaf's new automation-learning smart assistant, Sense Plus is designed to learn how you like your lighting at certain times of day and offer schedules and suggested settings in the Nanoleaf app.

For example, if you set your home office to full brightness at 9 a.m. every morning and your living room to warm white in the evening, Nala should recognize this and suggest creating lighting automations that will trigger when you enter the room, giving you the right light at the right time of day. Similar to what the Nest thermostat does for heating, for example.

The more you interact with the switches, the higher its trust level will be, explains its designer. However, the system doesn't automatically make these adjustments. Instead, it suggests settings in the Nanoleaf app, and you can choose to enable them. You remain the sole master of the system.

The manufacturer claims that Sense Plus can also learn your movements in your home. If you define neighboring spaces in the app, it will learn when the motion sensors are triggered in sequence and will suggest turning on the bedroom light when you walk down the hall to that room, for example. The system is thus able to predict your movements in the house.

The system works with all Nanoleaf lights and will be compatible with all Matter-enabled lights (including competing brands). With Nanoleaf lights, however, you'll be able to use dynamic lighting scenes between the lights and Nanoleaf panels, so you can turn your bedroom into different shades of blue in the evening, if you wish. Learning features are optional, and you can use the Sense Plus switches like regular smart switches without a Nala Bridge. But since they're Thread switches, they'll require a Thread router. The bridge is a router, and the plug-in device also features built-in PIR motion and ambient light sensors, as well as a color-changing night light. Nanoleaf's Shapes, Elements, and Lines, which are also routers, can also be upgraded to become a Nala Bridge.

Two versions of the switches will be available: a wired version and a wireless version.

The wired Sense Plus switch doesn't require a neutral wire and can control traditional dimmable and non-dimmable LED bulbs, as well as Nanoleaf smart bulbs.

The wireless switch is battery-powered.

The switches and bridge will be available in the third quarter of 2023. Pricing hasn't yet been determined, but the manufacturer is targeting a price of around $20 for the button/wireless switch and $50 for the wired switch.

Nanoleaf 4D TV Smarter Kit: to sync lighting with your TV

Nanoleaf is expanding its addressable smart lighting line with a new technology designed to deliver a more immersive viewing experience to your TV: the Nanoleaf 4D TV Smarter Kit. This new product is presented as a series of RGB light strips designed to reflect the colors of your TV using a small camera that remains pointed at the screen, the goal being to achieve an Ambilight-like effect, well known on Philips TVs.

What differentiates the 4D Kit from other light strips offered by Nanoleaf is the small camera it contains.

This 4D camera can be pointed upwards at your TV screen or mounted above it, facing down. The camera connects to a small box that is attached to the light strips and features buttons to designate the light reference as the screen or music playback (similar to the Rhythm function currently available with other Nanoleaf products), in addition to the ability to cycle through existing themes or turn them off completely.

The light strip itself (Lightstrip) measures from 3.8 to 5 meters depending on the model.

Other manufacturers such as

Govee

already offer a similar system with a camera that can be used on your TV or computer screens. There are even some software suites like Razer Synapse that are compatible with Philips Hue and Lifx smart lights and offer the same functionality without the need for a camera. The Hue system also offers a box that fits between your media and the lights to sync the two, but it's unfortunately an expensive solution.

Nanoleaf's 4D Lighting Kit, in addition to being more affordable, also has a few additional features not offered by its competitors. In addition to being compatible with Matter, Nanoleaf allows you to sync all your existing Nanoleaf lights with what the camera sees, thanks to a new software feature called Sync Plus. It will initially be limited to the 4D Camera Kit at launch, but will be available for other Nanoleaf products following a future firmware update. The 4D Kit will be available in two sizes, one for 55- to 65-inch TVs and one for 70- to 80-inch TVs. It will be available starting in mid-2023, with a price starting at $99.99. The camera will also be sold separately (for use with your existing Nanoleaf lighting), but no pricing has been revealed yet.

Other Announced Products The manufacturer has announced many other new products. Of particular note is the stunning Nanoleaf Skylight, which should be a hit in any home: this modular ceiling light is made up of square LED panels and can mimic the presence of a skylight in your roof with adjustable white light of up to 3,000 lumens or offer a dynamic light scene using some of its 16 million colors. The Skylight is a Matter-enabled Wi-Fi ceiling panel that can sync with sound and will feature the same motion and light sensors as the Sense Plus switches. Its design is similar to the company's wall panels. Skylight starter kits of two or four packs will arrive in the third quarter of 2023. No pricing has been announced. The company also confirmed that its Matter-enabled and Thread-powered Essentials bulbs and light strips will arrive in the first quarter. Prices start at $19.99. The range includes A19, BR30, and GU10 bulbs, a recessed downlight, and a color light strip. The arrival of Matter support

Today, you can no longer be a player in the smart home without being compatible with Matter, the new protocol that's supposed to unify the entire smart home. Nanoleaf CEO Gimmy Chu announced that the company will offer Matter upgrades across its entire line of modular light panels and light bars (Shapes, Elements, Canvas, and Lines).

Matter compatibility means the lighting products will work with Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings right out of the box, as well as any other Matter-enabled products.

Only Nanoleaf Essentials light strips and existing A19 bulbs will not be able to be upgraded to Matter.