I have to admit that I’m lagging behind with lighting technology at my house. As someone who hasn’t yet even finished replacing my incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs with LEDs, smart lighting and the concept of “lights as art” has never entered my mind. Of course, I divulged none of this when I accepted an offer to review the $200 Nanoleaf Aurora—a modern, Wi-Fi-controlled, artsy LED-light set. And I’m glad I spent the time getting to know the system. As it turns out, you don’t have to be a cutting-edge smart home guru to appreciate good connected lighting.

About the Aurora

Nanoleaf's Aurora system is built around a number of linked LED light panels. Each panel is an equilateral triangle measuring about 9-3/4” (250mm) per side, with a thickness of 5/16” (8mm). An outer lens does a super job of diffusing the light from the LED sources within. This results in each panel appearing as a single, homogeneous, glowing light source. The system can produce more than 16 million different colors.

Your initial options for creativity relate to how you join multiple panels together. Sockets molded into the midpoint of each side can accept panel connectors the size of postage stamps. These connectors bridge the panels electrically and mechanically, and you can bind the triangles in any orientation that you want. A straight line, pyramid, squiggle—you can snap the panels together in whatever shapes you want. The “Smarter Kit” that I reviewed provides nine triangles, but the included power supply can support up to 30. Additional panels can be purchased in packs of three for $60.

Mounting the Aurora Panels

Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that the panel connectors do not provide a stable mechanical link—nothing snaps into place or locks down, and connected panels can be separated with minimal force. This isn’t really an issue if you use Nanoleaf’s recommended technique for mounting the panels: they recommend using numerous 3M Command strips to stick your triangles to the wall, building larger shapes as you go. My kit, however, did not include any sticky Command strips. It came with a bag of what appeared to be standard double-sided foam tape.

Already somewhat leery about the prospect of using so many Command strips to mount the Aurora, I decided there was absolutely no way I was going to stick drywall-eating foam tape to anything in my house. After a bit of thought and some math, I came up with an alternative mounting method. I wanted my nine equilateral panels to form a single large triangle, so I joined the panels into the desired shape face-down on a table. Then, I locked the panels together by applying strips of 2”-wide packing tape to the backside of the panels around the perimeter of the communal triangle. The tape alone made a huge difference in the structural integrity of the combined panels, but I still needed a way to attach it to the wall.

Terry Dunn

Terry Dunn

Terry Dunn

I added further rigidity and a handy wall-mounting method using an 11”x 14” piece of .093”-thick polycarbonate sheet ($8). I drilled a 3/8”-diameter hole in the sheet and trimmed the upper corners so that they wouldn’t protrude beyond the triangle borders. I then used the Aurora’s foam tape to attach the sheet to the backsides of the panels, making sure to align the drilled hole with the vertical centerline of the overall large triangle. I also verified that the hole was located over a recessed area of a panel (to accommodate the head of the screw that it will hang on). The plastic sheet didn’t cover the outermost panels of the triangle, but the combination of the packing tape and plastic sheet held everything together well enough such that it was easy to handle as one piece.

Before hanging the linked panels, I attached the small controller unit to the center panel on the bottom side of the triangle and secured it with packing tape. The nine combined panels weighed nearly four pounds (about 1.8kg). The drilled hole fit over the head of a screw emerging from a plastic anchor in the drywall. If you’re going to try a similar attachment method, make sure to pick a mounting location that has an outlet within reach of the controller unit’s power cord.

Using the Aurora

I installed Nanoleaf’s app on my iPhone, where it works in conjunction with Apple HomeKit to control the Aurora (though there are Android options, too). The in-app prompts and on-line instructional video were sufficient to get me up and running in about ten minutes, even though I’m a smart home newbie.

The first time you power on the assembled lights is a “wow” moment, like seeing an abstract painting coming to life. Multiple factory-programmed effects within the app transition the panels’ colors in different ways. Some of the effects are bold, while others are more subtle and soothing. The app allows you to adjust the speed of the transitions as well as the brightness of the lights. Full brightness is vivid—according to the manufacturer’s specs, each panel can produce 100 lumens of visible light. All nine at full brightness is about 10 percent brighter than a 60-watt incandescent bulb. Power usage is relatively low, at a stated max of 2W per panel.

The best feature of the app is being able to create and save your own effects. It’s an intuitive process and fun to do. You can select a palette of colors and then choose how the lights display and transition them. The Aurora is mounted in my windowless home theater room, so I programmed an effect that emulates the ambient room lighting that you often find at a “real” theater. It helps set the mood when we spin up the DVD player.

Since I frequently read in the same room, I also set up an effect with only white lights and a moderate brightness level. The light coming over my shoulder lets me see the book clearly, but isn’t too harsh. Sometimes I like to just sit without a movie, book, or anything else while watching the lights do their thing with different effects. It is as mesmerizing and calming as a lava lamp—only larger, flatter, and less likely to catch on fire.

You do not have to open the app each time you want to use the lights. The controller unit has a button that will cycle through your saved effects, though without the app you can't control the brightness. Nanoleaf also advertises compatibility with Amazon’s Alexa-equipped devices, but I didn't have immediate access to an Alexa device so wasn't able to test this out.

Embracing the Aurora

I gotta admit, the Aurora is much cooler than I anticipated. It can be used for functional illumination, but it really shines (no pun intended—okay, maybe a little) as an evolving and interactive art piece. The system’s only real shortcoming is the limited wall-mounting options included in the kit. I’d prefer to see built-in alternatives that don’t require so much drywall-destroying sticky stuff.

And if I turned out to be a fan of the Aurora, my kids turned out to be super-fans. They love to watch the lights and program new sequences, and I have a library of kid-generated custom effects to prove it.

I think this means I just became a modern lighting guy.

Terry Dunn (@weirdflight on Twitter) spent 15 years as an engineer at the Johnson Space Center and is now a freelance writer living in Lubbock, Texas. Visit his website at TerryDunn.org.