Nanoleaf Reviews

by Lemme Telya Bouda Ting

Why do the directions tell me to connect the Light Panels to my Home app on my phone first when in reality having done so would actually then prevent me from connecting the Light Panels to Nanoleaf? Since the Panels can only connect once (which conveniently isn’t even indicated anywhere, determined thru trial/error) and then need to be Reset before it can be connected to anything else...

Then it took me forever to get the Panels Reset since neither the manual in the box, nor the website indicate which button in which on the Controller... found a video but it shows a different type of Controller, fiiinally found a different video showing the correct Controller where I eventually found out that the Toggle button apparently refers to the Brightness + Up symbol (not the Play > button or the Shuffle >< button as would seemingly make far more sense)

by Not A Fitness Geek

"Smarter by design." I have never laughed so hard at a company slogan before. I've had absolutely nothing but bad experience after bad experience in using both Nanoleaf and the product, especially together. Nanoleaf is horribly designed and layed out, designed to look nice but functionally it barely works. Connecting to the device is extremely slow and that's if the device can be connected to at all. Attempting to use Nanoleaf with a this app account does not make things better. I have been signed out of Nanoleaf every time I close it and now attempting to log into my account it say it doesn't exist. Attempting to make a new account, regardless of what email is used, I am told the account already exists. This is an absolutely atrocious user experience that no one should have to deal with, especially for $200 plus. For that type of money it should work at least half of the time. Do NOT buy this product.

by Ja@mac

I spent a couple of hours with tech support via chatting to try to find out simple items such as how to create and save a custom color for lighting (a19 bulbs). Nanoleaf is not intuitive for such simple tasks. Except using Nanoleaf occasionally to update the firmware, I will delete it and use the iOS Home app / HomeKit alone to run the nice this app lights. The tech support experience for Nanoleaf left me beyond frustrated - the worst tech support I can remember. When I asked for written or video instructions on setting up a light scene and also on how to save a color, he sent me a link to a video for which he stated “Here is a video although it is a bit outdated”. First, it was not relevant to the current version of Nanoleaf . It was so outdated that a year ago, a commenter stated the video should be deleted due to it being outdated. I am incredulous that there are no written instructions for Nanoleaf /product. Yes there are current videos for Nanoleaf, but they lack some important details and are unclear in areas such as using a threading device other than Google’s (the video seemed to imply that the HomePod mini would not work, which I don’t believe is correct). I recommend using only iOS Home app for the a19 this app lights.

by SpaceMan69420

I want to like Nanoleaf but it is extremely buggy.
-Thread latency seems to be high. App takes forever to get state when opened. The EVE app is 10x quicker for on/off which really surprised me
-color state doesn’t sync to the picker UI well. For example let’s say a lamp is white and I want it to go to red. To actually get red quickly I have to click another color (for example green) THEN red and it will instantly change. If I hit red first nothing will happen for a while.
-there are lots of what appears to be UITableView cell re-use bugs all throughout Nanoleaf . Try updating firmware for 10+ essentials and scrolling, the update state will randomly apply to new cells. Please consider remaking the entire app in SwiftUI, it will run much better and solves so many problems.
-equipment: 20+ essential A19 on thread, 6th gen ATV4K border router on Ethernet, gigabit wifi 6E, iPhone 13 pro, latest app version/bulb firmware.

by Jobe Dingasi

Nanoleaf is horrible. Anytime I use it, it will work for 5 minutes or so and then it just starts to have random glitches. When you click preview on a preset in discover, nothing happens. Then you click it a couple times because maybe Nanoleaf isn’t registering your click, and then a minute later it will send 15 messages, each one 10 seconds apart from the last that say “failed to select preview on all devices”, each of which you have to click “ok” on. It is so annoying after a while to deal with stuff like this. And the editing or making new scenes makes absolutely no sense, and I have yet so successfully do it with the new update. Also for some reason it will just not back up my previous scenes. I have had these panels for a year, and have probably spent 4+ hours total in troubleshooting and getting “unreachable” or dealing with some other problem that interferes with me being able to enjoy the panels normally.

by Polyport

The new redesign now tries to be a bad replacement for the Home app. When I run the this app app I want to control my this app devices. Nanoleaf now presents a list of your rooms by default, and you have to hunt and scroll for your this app panels. I have full home automation with 10+ rooms and multiple lights and devices in each room and the only reason I open Nanoleaf is to manage what my panels do, which now is a major task to find the panels first. Figured I’d remove the rooms I don’t care from Nanoleaf but that deleted them *from my HomeKit setup*. I now have to re-add my rooms and devices.
I get it, this app, your new essentials stuff needs a home too, but the extra steps you added to your app to pick some options for my panels basically mean that I now have fancy hue lights I can dim and set the color because I won’t hunt in your app for my lights. There are better apps for basic lighting control than the Nanolead app. How about you have an app for just programming the panels in addition to your new ambitions of controlling all HomeKit lights...

by CYE Noob

I really wanted to give a positive review of this product, but Nanoleaf is just too unreliable. I don’t know that this is an issue with the hardware, as it’s good with changing colors and brightness. Still Nanoleaf is the greatest weakness and it is VERY buggy. EVERY time I set a color or a Scene for multiple devices, then change the brightness, it ALWAYS changes the color back to white. The ONLY time this does not happen is when changing the color/brightness for a single light.

I tried all I could think of including resetting all the devices, resetting the data, working with tech-support, uninstalling and reinstalling Nanoleaf , and absolutely none of this solved the problem. Tech support had the nerve to ask me to send a video of myself resetting their devices to prove I was doing the procedure correctly on different requests for help, like I can’t follow their instructions or that they didn’t believe I was resetting correctly.

this app needs to get its act together with their app so that it actually works reliably. Their tech support leaves much to be desired and will be asking you to do all the work and “prove to them” you followed their troubleshooting steps correctly. They ask too much of the user and this experience could be improved by just selling a product that actually works.

by Drizzybare

I’ve purchased over ten of these lights and CONSISTENTLY have had issues with setting them up or subsequently not responding to my device. Usually it takes resetting the bulbs multiple times to get them to respond again. In my latest attempt after finally getting the original three I purchased to operate, more than half of the bulbs will not firmware update using the developer’s own app.

The only luck I’ve managed to have in setting them up is through HomeKit, but even then their responsiveness to my devices (even with hubs like Apple TV and HomePod mini) is unpredictable at best.

I really wish that the developers of both the product and Nanoleaf would address and fix these issues because they are really a great value for smart bulbs, but they could be so much better if they were reliable too.

by Ayyyyyyy Non

I’ve had my this app light panels since the end of 2019 and they were great until they released their massive app update last year. The UI/UX was pretty bad, but more importantly, my light panels no longer were staying connected. I hadn’t moved the panels or my router at all, yet had to constantly factory reset them and try to reconnect them to Nanoleaf . Every time the connection was lost within a week, and then it got to the point where Nanoleaf just froze and wouldn’t load whenever I did try to connect them again. Thankfully the panels still remember the scenes I set up when I could still access Nanoleaf , so I just cycle through those and for about 7 months now I have completely given up on trying to use Nanoleaf . It’s disappointing to see the other reviews of Nanoleaf all saying the same thing, and knowing that this has been an issue for almost a year now with no changes.

by DJ UPBEAT

I have the essential light bulb A19. When I purchased I was excited.

However, set up was a hassle. You should notify us that lights will flicker before connecting so we don’t freak out or think it’s not working.

I've had for several days already. I’ve had it randomly start flickering while it’s on and steady. I’ve come home and tried turning it on through the this app app or Apple Home and had situation it didn’t turn on or flickered.

I have to constantly delete the light bulb from my device setting and reset it (doesn’t always reset) and reconnect. Usually that’s still a hassle and can still flicker or most likely not connect at all like right now. Writing this review because I can’t connect my device again.

Home app integration slow when turning on or off.

Apple Watch home app control also slow or not recognizable.

The new feature that came out a day or two ago for the light to turn on and off by recognizing my device proximity when I get home or leave does not work.

This is a home product. Stuff like this are supposed to work without interruptions and problems. Instead of relaxing I have to deal with this and can’t even fix it the way it’s supposed to be fixed. Whether it’s a software or hardware problem I don’t even know. Software side definitely has lots of problems though.

by RobertoC-73

Unfortunately nobody is making HomeKit-compatible smart bulbs with tunable white lighting without the extra RGB. Therefore I was stuck buying this app Essential light bulbs. It’s okay, you can ignore the unnecessary RGB colors if you want and use them as tunable white bulbs, right? Not so fast.

The this app app makes it hard to remove RGB presets and replace them with tunable white presets. I was able to make presets for 2400K, 2700K, 3000K, 3500K, 4100K, 5000K and 6493K - this app doesn’t do 6500K. But achieving these presets took A LONG TIME and extremely precise swipes in a color wheel. There’s no reason it has to be this hard. There should be an option for the user to type the exact color temperature they are looking for. To add insult to injury, presets don’t synchronize across devices so after going through all that effort on my iPhone, I had to do it all over again on my iPad.

by Keeper Of The Keys

The product itself is super cool. I have a playlist that wakes me up every morning, and I love having lights that play to the beat. I don’t have a window in my bedroom, so it’s my source of light. However, they do not always work. There have been numerous times over the few years I’ve had the product where the panels do not connect to Nanoleaf or cannot be turned off. If the power ever goes out in my apartment, sometimes it takes up to a month and multiple tries to get it working again. And if I can’t turn it off, then there are on all the time, which is annoying if any noise is made when I’m trying to sleep (cause they are noise sensitive).

The support team is always very friendly, but it can be exhausting getting it working again. The ways I got it re-connect before do not seem to work for the next time it happens.

Overall, I am happy I have the product, really wish it worked better.

by Rigggggg

Set up when you get your lights isn’t the worst. The has a really nice dashboard you can design layouts with. The preview / download feature is pretty amazing, I find new lighting fixtures people make everyday for my panels. The this app product is absolutely incredible and worth every penny. 3 stars is for Nanoleaf ’s functionality or rather lack of consistency. Sometimes it connects to my panels right when I open, sometimes it says not connected and will randomly connect after closing and restarting Nanoleaf a few times. Same goes for previewing / downloading light fixtures off the discover / explore pages, sometimes it works seamlessly and sometimes it is so unresponsive it will make you worry. I just think Nanoleaf need to be more consistent with the actual functions of turning the lights on / off and changing fixtures.

by PANdaRUZ

...why must Nanoleaf be so dang confusing!? I’ve got other smart lights and devices and none come across as befuddling as Nanoleaf does. I’ve updated to the latest app. I’ve checked and triple checked all of the menus. I’ve swiped, tapped, double tapped, multiple finger tapped, heck I’ve even deleted and re-downloaded Nanoleaf and it’s still problematic. For starters I can’t for the life of me figure out how to delete rooms I’d previously created. I can’t drag lights to the trash. I can move them from room to room but that’s kinda pointless when I’ve moved twice since owning these lights and no longer have most of those rooms. It’s generally a very plain app that attempts to be simplistic but overly complicated the process of renaming, moving, or creating and deleting rooms and lights. It’s also very inconsistent when it comes to hitting some of the menus as they will sometimes refuse to do anything. That leaves you second guessing as if to if there really is or isn’t an option to access there.

Please. Simplify Nanoleaf but keep the necessities obvious. I’m on team this app. I want you guys to succeed.

by PiggyBlubber

My this app light panels are so worth my money! I do have a small problem with the light panels themselves. They make a light buzzing sound. I don’t have anymore sets connected to them. this app, if you’re reading this, can you please tell me why they’re buzzing? Back to Nanoleaf itself, I have nearly no problems. It’s just that when I’m creating a dynamic scene for my lights, the colors always go back to the preset colors. So when I try to set a color pallet, it automatically goes back to the rainbow. I don’t know if this is just mine or if other people have the same problem. Other than that, I love these lights and like I said, SO WORTH THE MONEY!

by //Tozer//

Before this new interface update, everything was easy to access and easy to understand and test. Although I like the new feature of Nanoleaf being able to connect with other smart devices I have around my home I dislike how the discover page and dashboard tile was updated for several reasons although I’ll only mention about the main issue, when I go to preview a scene on my device(s) after selecting the scene I’d like to preview, 7/10 times I will get an error message saying it’s unable to preview the scene on the select device and sometimes Nanoleaf ends up crashing afterwards. This is very frustrating and my devices are all updated to the newest firmware along with the apps itself. Hopefully you can re attempt at a new UI that’s a lot easier to navigate and not run into issues. Thanks

by Khayes1

I like Nanoleaf and it loads quickly and works reliably for me. There are a few things that would make it better. I’d like if when I came back to Nanoleaf , it didn’t have to load again. It’s quick so it’s not too bad, but I’d like if it stayed in the memory and ready to go to make a quick adjustment. I don’t like that when I change the animation or color, it automatically changes back to 100% brightness every time. It should stay at the same brightness it’s already at. And I wish there were an option to change the animation speed. It would be nice to be able to slow some of them down for a more relaxed feel and to make it less eye-catching/distracting. Or maybe even speed it up for more of a party environment. Also being able to save more animations would be cool, there is a limit which I understand might be a hardware issue. Loving the Hexagons. Thanks

by Tinytiby

I saw these on an ad and thought it was just another too good to be true device that would help transform any setting in your house to a modern and elegant feel, and after taking the leap to purchase two triangle starting kits and set them up, believe every word when I say these are REMARKABLE!!!! I was a little intimidated by the setup as I wanted to make sure I placed them in a straight line but once you get the first 2 center panels aligned just right, the rest building outward just fall into place. The moment I turned on the power, I was completely blown away by the visibility and variety of lighting it gave off!!! I played with it during sunlight and before I knew it, it had transitioned into night outside and I was able to adjust the panels to accommodate the different lighting ambiance. I was really happy to see these were an any-time-of-day lighting kit that can set the tone of any atmosphere. There are endless possibilities with these panels from pre built in settings to discovering color patterns found through Nanoleaf that you can test and download to make up your own desirable library! The technology behind this app is like no other (it even has touch capability!) and I’m so excited to continue playing with my lighting setup and am absolutely going to buy more products to add to my setup. Thanks for making such a GREAT product this app and taking zero shortcuts to creat products how they should be, impressive!!!

by Nduran87

I’ve had these lights for several years now. They are great lights and I use them for everything from mood setting to general light of the room. With the most recent update it has messed up everything. I’ve had to delete out all my lights and remote and re-add them only to find they don’t we add. If you use Apple home this works great because the software loves to pair with Apple home. Are use Google and while it works it won’t let me cloud sync without an apple home profile. Please fix these little bugs like using a google home profile or actually being able to delete things off my this app profile

by Chadnerma

It takes a long minute for Nanoleaf to actually load and bring you to the home page! It’s so glitchy, upon opening Nanoleaf , when the name loads up onto the screen the graphics freeze! Then when it’s done thinking about it and comes back to life you are unable to do anything yet because now the home screen is frozen. 30 seconds (a long time in this situation) must pass for it to pop back to life. Ok, now that we have life I must say that it’s a bit confusing on how to create your own patterns. I do love love love these lights, I just wanna have more fun with them. And in order for that to happen the glitches and confusion must go away! Lights make me so happy, and that is my goal.

by $&75'bt

I got those because they look fantastic, spent 4 1/2 hours trying to set it up and literally 3 minutes after it's all set up it disconnects and stops working and will not reconnect at all making it useless and unable to function or control the lights! And even worse it only works on 5ghz networks so that definitely doesn't help either! Also I forgot to mention...it uses over half your battery life! I have about 45% battery at the end of the day usually and it's at 28% after 45 minutes of messing with Nanoleaf and it still not working! Really really doesn't help at all! Could have been an amazing product but it does t work very well with Nanoleaf that's complete garbage and literally no customer support either and that makes it even worse. It could have been such an amazing product but they made it bad so frustrating they did that!

by Tonos10

I have had this since it came out and it has not worked for months. Customer support is VERY confusing. They have lost my account in their system. Emails, account everything. Here is an example of a page long troubleshooting process.....🤯 and I am not sure of all the steps. All of my 17 other smart devices work flawlessly.......except this app it doesn’t even register the products I purchased from them 💩👎
For Alexa and Smarthings, you need to login using the same email you signed up in the this app app for it recognize and discover your devices.

In Google please ensure your email that you setup your this app account should show up as a registered email in Nanoleaf . This is required also to send voice commands.
ie in Google (Settings>home members> your this app email should be registered in there)

First, ensure in the this app app Cloud Sync has been enabled so your device is on cloud and can communicate with Google/Alexa. To do this, go to the this app app> Settings in the menu> go to MY ACCOUNT, CHOOSE CLOUD SYNC TURN OFF/THEN ON. This will give you a new timestamp for today! If you don’t see the option to turn off/on cloud sync there, then hit the right > next to home while in this menu and then turn if off/on

by Alicedollhouse

Nanoleaf is terrible, not well designed and the device itself is almost always unreachable. I have to believe most of these positive reviews are fake, as if you go online most of what I see are complaints. I had this for maybe two days before it had to be reset. For this much money your product should be at least decent instead of broken more than 95% of the time. I have a stable WiFi network and no other accessories with these types of problems. Both myself and my partner work in IT fixing issues with tech all day, I can assure you it is not human error. Nanoleaf looks like it was designed by engineers instead of actual designers who understand UX, and it’s also ugly as sin. Go with Hue where there’s some actual support and reliability. I’d never buy anything this company makes again. Utter garbage.

by Ecsdesignsvfx

I got the this app panels and set up Nanoleaf - but Nanoleaf seems to be trying to be waaay more than just programming these panels, it’s really deep with home/room/shopping/etc. But...any tab I can figure out to be associated with just the this app panels don’t seem to work. In my “Dashboard” is a “Basic - Color - Rythm - Group” set of tabs across the top, but the pages are completely blank. Color calibration, my panels don’t show up, panels don’t show up anywhere despite successfully pairing and nowhere to attempt to pair or setup again.

Setup was a little confusing as it kept asking about some “home” systems that I’ve never heard of and wanted me to setup some “shop” account in addition to the new this app account I just created. Maybe trying to bypass that messed something up. no response through their feedback/help.

by CoreyPattakos

All of my smart lights and plugs connect without a problem, I spent $1200 on these panels 3 days ago and still can not connect them to my phone, my iPad, my work phone or work iPad. I have 2 different routers one for work and one for personal, both with 2G options and these lights will not even show as a accessory, I’ve uninstalled the apps 10+ times, tried different networks etc. I’ve turned off my firewall on both routers and still nothing. Nanoleaf or panels are absolutely junk if they cannot connect to a phone!!! $10 China made lights connect without a problem this app!! LIFX was bad, so i bought these but wow these are 10x’s worse. Anyone reading this, save your money. ALSO these WILL rip your paint off, so be prepared to touch up spots. Problem with LIFX was they wouldn’t stick and their app was very complicated but at least connected!!

by PádraigS

When I first got the starter kit and panels, I was excited to try everything out. Downloaded Nanoleaf and everything just worked flawlessly. I downloaded scenes and had everything set up nicely on my dashboard.
Unfortunately, they recently updated Nanoleaf and it’s caused nothing but problems. I’m having multiple issues connecting to the panels, the dashboard is gone and cannot find any of the scenes I had downloaded (Even though in itself cloud sync it can still see I downloaded them).
It’s a huge mess and incredibly frustrating having to try and connect to my panels for over an hour until giving up completely. If the company was smart they’d roll back to the last update until they can fix what was going on with the recent one, but it’s highly doubtful.

by Mzxy

I had a perfectly functioning, 30-panel set-up. Then, along came this piece of garbage firmware update designed to make the product better. But now it is completely unusable. I have reinstalled the product 4 times now. After spending 30 minutes or so each time, and FINALLY getting to app to work, 30 minutes later, Nanoleaf won’t connect and the lights have just defaulted to bright white at 100% intensity. Horrible. Nothing works. None of the programs. The buttons on the hardware itself don’t work now. All this immediately after installing this crappy “update”. Whereas I once had a piece of living art on my wall, I now have a $500 LED lightbulb. I’m so disappointed. I’ve only had the product for three weeks, so I barely got a chance to enjoy it.

by Ivorypale

If you love wasting two or more hours troubleshooting, setting the lights back to factory reset, deleting and redownloading Nanoleaf , resetting up the device and reprogramming your lights after every app update, this is the product for you!
The lights stop working in some way every time there is a software update. This time it was the scheduling. Last time they wouldn’t turn on. The time before that all my scenes were deleted. Support is nonexistent and their site’s copyright hasn’t even been updated in two years. Their only QA appears to be crowd sourced. Buy a Hue LED strip- it’s cheaper and it’ll actually work without giving you years of headaches like this does.

by Ercable

The product works decently, but I purchased this in large for its compatibility with Apple HomeKit - which is not working properly. More specifically, using this app Canvas with HomeKit automation is not working. This may be some configuration needed (though I doubt it) or a firmware update, but this app support team is horrible, so I don’t know.

And that may be the worst part about this device - it’s support system. They don’t have anyone you can talk to live. They enforce emails to convey technical issues. I spend two weeks and four emails to spin in circles just trying to communicate my problem. Apparently, they just get bored and stop replying to my emails.

This product is too expensive for shoddy support and for an advertised capability not to work

by Estebangil86

I’ve owned these for a while and have never had any issues at all. Panels look great and are bright enough for any condition I throw at them.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure why the developer decided to completely redo Nanoleaf . It’s by far one of the prettiest, yet least intuitive, least functional apps I’ve ever used. Definitely not user friendly at all. It seems like they were more concerned about the overall look of Nanoleaf and not at all concerned about usability and ease of use.

If I was looking to buy this product today and knew how not user friendly Nanoleaf is, I would not purchase it.

by Lost River Seeds

Love the lights, hate Nanoleaf . First off is the inability to use the faster wifi in the house, all devices need to be in sync with one another and because this doesnt work with the 5g wifi or whatever its called i have down grade my phone and my other devices to use this app. Second is the connection issue. This is making consider selling them and purchasing a different brand. This is ridiculous that Nanoleaf has been around for many years and the same problem was happening in the beginning as it is today. I dont recommend these panels to anyone and I wont until this app addresses and fixes these issues.

by Grantasaurusrex

Nanoleaf is a lot of fun to play with. My wall looks pretty killer with my 50 piece set. My controller panel has been a little flaky though, and there have been instances where Nanoleaf and my wall have connectivity issues which results in me taking the time to restart the device. It’s kind of a pain. I spent $1,000 bucks for some lights, I expect them to work well. With that said, Nanoleaf is open to creativity, and is a great outlet to share and download ideas and designs. It’s really fun and I can’t wait to show my guests. All in all, despite the setbacks, Nanoleaf is a hit. Also, the layout tool saved me. There’s no way I would have got my design up first try without it.

by Bryanbates27

This is a really cool app and set of panels but the latest update (or firmware update or both, not sure) has caused my leaf panels to stop responding with Nanoleaf . I’ve reset my phone, the panels, the WiFi, and I still cannot get the panels to connect for more than 5 min (I have to reset each time). Nanoleaf was working perfectly before, so I’m said I’m that I’m having to give it 1 star for now because of this. I hope you guys can fix this issue!