Nanoleaf has made a name for itself by putting light-up geometric shapes on your walls. But now they’re doing something different with light, sticking it behind your television and using the image on the screen to modulate the colors.
Nanoleaf calls it “4D Lighting” and it’s enabled by their new Nanoleaf 4D Screen Mirror Camera and Lighstrip kit.
What Is It?
It shouldn’t come as a shock that the Nanoleaf 4D Screen Mirror Camera and Smart Addressable Gradient Lighstrip Kit for TVs and Monitors, besides being atrociously named, consists of a small camera and a lightstrip to attach to the back of your TV or monitor.
The kit comes with four corner supports so that you can flex the lighstrip around the corners (since it doesn’t bend at 90-degree angles). It also comes with multiple mounts for the camera and a wired four-button control module. Though you’ll be doing most of the control through the Nanoleaf app.
The kit comes with two different lengths of lightstrip: 65″ and 85″ and can be cut to accommodate smaller sizes.
Is It Easy To Install?
There’s both more and less setup involved with the kit than with your typical Nanoleaf lighting solution. Since the lightstrip is going to be attached to the back of your TV, you don’t have to worry about pre-planning how the components are going to fit together.
However, if you’re like me and have your TV mounted, you’ll have to dig in the recesses of your brain to figure out just how to get it off the mounting arm so that you can access the back. Once you do, it’s a simple process to stick the corner guides on and then attach the self-adhesive light strip.
Once you’ve made a full circuit, just cut off the excess in one of the indicated spots on the lightstrip. Nanoleaf’s engineered it with re-map technology, so it automatically updates the length without you having to do anything.
Then you’ll need to connect the lightstrip to the manual controller, then plug the controller into your power strip and a spare HDMI slot.
For the 4D Screen Mirror Camera, you can mount it on the top, bottom, or even side of your TV. Basically, you’ll want it to have a full view of the screen so that it can illuminate the lighstrip appropriately. There’s a nice counterbalance mount that lets you place it on the top of the screen and once it’s on, you’ll barely notice it’s there.
It’s worth mentioning that the camera is only looking for colors on your screen, nothing else, and doesn’t store or transmit images anywhere. For those that are extra careful, though, there is a magnetic cover that you can pop onto the lens.
Is It Worth It?
This kit is by far the best upgrade I’ve made to my TV since I bought a soundbar. At $99, it’s practically a no-brainer. Surprising no one, Nanoleaf is an expert at syncing color to action.
The first time I watched ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ with full 4D immersion turned on, I was transfixed. It truly captured the myriad of colors on the screen, casting them to the corners of the enclosure in which I’ve hung my TV, extending the action.
Granted, it’s not always perfect. If there’s a brightly-colored object on screen, like a red door, the 4D camera will pick that up and cast a red glow approximately where the object is. While that makes sense for lighting, it’s weird for stationary objects. However, one of the coolest tricks I’ve found is whenever there’s a flame or torch on the screen. The Nanoleaf 4D camera will make the lightstrip flicker in time with the flame, truly extending the scene beyond the screen.
If the 4D lighting effect is too much for you, there are multiple options, each upping the immersiveness. 1D is a white ambient light that changes brightness with the image. 2D does the same, but with color that matches the dominant shade on the screen. 3D adds in more hues. Where 4D is multi-hue and varying brightness all around the screen, based on what’s happening in each quadrant.
You aren’t limited to just the lightstrip behind your TV either. The 4D kit is Sync+ enabled, so you can have every Nanoleaf RGB light in your house echo what’s being captured by the 4D camera. You can also sync the lightstrip to your music as well. There’s something called “Magic Scenes” as well that provide ambient lighting based on keywords you provide.
But make no mistake, the star attraction is watching movies and shows (or playing games) with the lights off while the 4D camera broadcasts a lightshow behind your screen. It makes every other TV look boring.
You can get your kit starting at $99 from the Nanoleaf site.
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