Nanoleaf Matter Smart Holiday String Lights Review
A simple way to upgrade your Christmas lights
Verdict
Proving that smart string lights don’t have to be expensive, the Nanoleaf Matter Smart Holiday String Lights gives you two 10m strings of lights (250 LEDs in total) that can be used inside or out. That double-string approach can make installation a bit fiddly. Get past that and these Matter-compatible lights are fun, engaging and can brighten any home.
Pros
- Great value
- Excellent colour range
- Matter compatible
Cons
- Double string design a bit fiddly
Key Features
- 250 LEDsSplit into two 10m runs, there’s a total of 20m of lights and 250 individual LEDs.
- Matter compatibleWorks with Matter controllers over Wi-Fi.
Introduction
Smart string lights are an excellent upgrade to any festive period, giving more control over the lighting settings, whether you’ve got them attached to a Christmas tree or draped around the room.
This year, the Nanoleaf Matter Smart Holiday String Lights are the latest to join the fray. Well-priced, easy to control and great value, these are brilliant smart lights, although they may not suit every home.
Design and features
- 250 LEDs, split into two connected strings
- Works with the Nanoleaf app
- Matter compatible
Most smart string lights come as a continuous run of lights on one string, such as the Philips Hue Festavia, which has a 20m run of lights with 250 individual LEDs. Here, the Smart Holiday String Lights have two strings of 125-LEDs, each 10m long.
That has its benefits and downsides. If you’ve got two distinct areas that you want to cover, then the split run makes it easier to achieve. If you just want to decorate one tree, then you’ve got two sets of lights to deal with, which isn’t quite as easy as stringing one.
It also means that packing up requires both strands to be tied up; with the Hue lights, I could just wrap them around the cardboard spool in the box and pack them away for another year.
As with the Hue lights, the Nanoleaf option is only available in one length. For more variety, the Twinkly string lights are available in multiple lengths or even pre-installed on a Balsam Hill Twinkly Christmas tree.
It’s good to see that the Nanoleaf Matter Smart Holiday String Lights are indoor and outdoor, so you can use them to light up a garden instead of the inside of your home.
Installation is just as simple here as with any other string lights: you can wrap, twist and stick the lights where you want them, covering pretty much any space.
An in-line remote control provides some basic options: on/off, and cycle through a series of pre-set scenes. It’s quite useful having this control available, as anyone can control the lights without needing a phone.
Of course, for more control, these lights do need to be connected. As with recent Nanoleaf lights, such as the Matter Essentials Smart Lightstrip, these lights are Matter compatible. Rather than using Thread, the lights work via Bluetooth (for local control using the Nanoleaf app) and Wi-Fi.
Nanoleaf recommends connecting its lights to the Nanoleaf app first and then connecting via Matter to the smart home system of your choice. Using Matter requires a Matter hub, such as an Echo Show 8 or Apple HomePod Mini.
Matter is useful because you can control the lights using a different smart home system, including them in automations, such as turning on the Nanoleaf Matter Smart Holiday String Lights with other Christmas lights.
Control is far more basic using a Matter app or voice. For example, using Apple Home, I could change the colour or temperature of the lights, turn them on or off, or adjust brightness, but that was it.
More control comes via the Nanoleaf app. This offers the same basic level of control, with colour and temperature selection. However, it also gives you dynamic scenes, where the lights blink or colour-shift: think of your typical Christmas lights and you get the idea.
While the basic scenes are enough to get you started, there’s a scene creator in the app. Using the templates, I could create my own light colours and patterns, building the scene that I wanted. It’s flexible, although Twinkly lights have more customisation, and the mapping aspect of the software means that you can create scenes based on how your lights are laid out.
Rhythm scenes let the lights change colour to the beat of the music you’re playing, using your phone’s microphone for listening.
Performance
- Excellent colour range
- Dimming is surprisingly useful
Nanoleaf’s lights are at least as bright as the Philips Hue or Twinkly equivalent. I’m a fan of the dynamic scenes, which are more entertaining than the ones available for the Hue Festavia. As with all smart string lights, the ability to dim the lights is surprisingly useful.
When watching TV, for example, taking the light’s brightness down a notch makes them less intrusive and less likely to distract.
Colour range is excellent from these lights, too, faithfully reproducing the full colour spectrum properly.
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Should you buy it?
You want excellent value smart string lights
Given their quality and brightness, these lights are excellent value and a great upgrade for any home.
You need a different length of lights
If you need more (or fewer) lights, then the Twinkly system may make more sense.
Final Thoughts
If you want smart string lights, there are now three main choices in the UK, each with their own benefits. The Hue Festavia lights are more expensive, but integrated fully with the Hue ecosystem, so they match the scene colour you set for an entire room and can be controlled with any wireless remotes; they don’t have the same range of dynamic effects.
The Twinkly string lights are slightly more expensive for a 20m (250 LED) length, but there are also longer and shorter lengths available to match different spaces. Arguably, these lights have the best dynamic scenes.
Then, there’s the Nanoleaf Matter Smart Holiday String Lights reviewed here, which are bright, have a wide-choice of dynamic scenes and are the best value of all. Check out our Best Smart Lights guide for more options.
How we test
Unlike other sites, we test every smart home product we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
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We test how each product integrates with other smart home systems including Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple HomeKit, IFTTT and Samsung SmartThings
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FAQs
They use Wi-Fi and are Matter compatible.
Yes, these lights are IP44 rated.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
