One of the big advantages of having a smart home is taking advantage of all the smart lighting options today. Personally, I’m a big fan of LED strip lights. The secret is strategic placement so you don’t see the light strip itself. Place them above cabinets, under desks, or behind TVs so the light reflects off walls. Today, I’m going to take it up a notch with smart lights that have literally gotten smarter. 

I’m reviewing the Nanoleaf 4D Screen Wi-Fi Mirror. It is an LED strip light that goes behind any TV up to 65”. It comes with a screen mirror camera that—in real-time—syncs the lights on the TV screen to the lights on the back. At the price point, it comes at, it almost seems too good to be true. Is it? Let’s find out.

Specs: Nanoleaf 4D Screen Wi-Fi Mirror

  • 65-inch light strip with 10 colours per meter
  • Produces up to 275 lumens of light with 7.2W 
  • Voice control with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Apple HomeKit
  • Included magnetic cover to block camera lens for privacy
  • LED lights provide a life expectancy of up to 25,000 hours
Nanoleaf 4D Unboxing

Unboxing the Nanofeaf 4D Screen Wi-Fi Mirror

Inside the box is everything you need to get the Nanoleaf 4D setup. The three main parts are the physical controller, the 65” LED light strip, and the 4D screen mirror camera. A power adapter, instruction manual, camera mount, and double-sided tape are also included. You’ll also find four plastic corner pieces with an angular curve that go on each corner. The LED strip curves through each corner while still having a flat surface where the tape sticks. 

Nanoleaf 4D Install

Setting up the Nanoleaf 4D Screen Mirror

Unlike most people, I don’t have a TV in my living room. I moved my desk into the living room. Now I’m surrounded by windows and natural lighting. The only TV I have in my house is in my home studio. It’s mounted on the wall. I took it down for this review. 

First, I used the tape to secure the corner pieces behind my TV. I then proceeded to tape the LED strip around the corners. The LED strip cuts to size with dedicated lines on the strip to cut it. However, I decided to just double-wrap the leftover end. Since this TV is mounted to the wall, I placed the camera mount on the top. It basically clips to the top of the TV and you can adjust the arm until the camera is pointed to the TV. Once that was done, I mounted the TV back up and connected the camera and LED strip to the controller.  

The rest of the installation happens in the app. I scanned the QR code on the instruction manual to add the Nanofeaf 4D device to the Nanoleaf app. You definitely don’t want to lose the instruction manual in case you need to install it again. My Handy Andy tip is to tape the instruction manual to the back of the TV.

Installation issues

This is the point where I ran into issues. While the controller was successfully added, the LED lights never came on during the calibration stage. For the life of me, I could not troubleshoot my way out of this issue. After searching on Reddit, I noticed others were having the same issue. One person mentioned that you really had to push the USB-C end of the light strip into the controller. When I did that, I could get the lights to blink once but then it went out. After trying this over and over again, the lights finally came on. Hallelujah, the tech gods answered my prayers. From there, I was able to successfully calibrate the lights on the TV.

Nanoleaf 4D center blue

Using the Nanoleaf 4D Screen Wi-Fi Mirror

Once the Nanoleaf was working, I was finally able to put it through its paces. Inside the app, there are a lot of customization options and pre-built scene modes. 4D screen mirroring and the rhythm mode is what I focused on. I played some Animal Planet on Netflix and sure enough, the LED strip lights matched the colours on the screen. When the scene was showing whales underwater in the ocean, the strip lights turned blue. Best of all, the lights were changing in almost real-time. It definitely adds to the television viewing experience. 

Next, I tried the Rhythm mode. This is where the lights react to music. It works great. In a way, you get to visualize the music you’re listening to with the lights. However, I used it while I was watching a movie on Netflix. The cool thing is the lights react to the dialogue on screen. In the app, I went to the custom colour section and picked red. Afterward, the light effect totally reminded me of the car “Kit” on Knightrider. As people would talk, the lights would wave back and forth. It sure took me back, I felt like a kid again. 

What I like about the Nanoleaf 4D Screen Mirror

The Nanoleaf 4D Screen Wi-Fi Mirror transforms your television experience. Movie and gaming nights will never be the same. I’ve used LED strips behind TVs but the 4D screen mirroring takes it to a whole new level. It’s all happening in real-time. There is very little latency. Kids, gamers, and techies like myself are going to love this. However, it’s ideal for nighttime viewing. The effect is not the same during the daytime so I would only use it at night. 

What I don’t like about the Nanoleaf 4D Screen Wi-Fi Mirror

I did not have a good experience setting this up. I spent hours troubleshooting and to be honest, I almost gave up. I reached out to Nanoleaf support, and they tried but could not fix the issue. They suggested a power cycle, reset, reinstall, and update to the firmware. After I did all that, they were out of suggestions. Thankfully I found a Reddit thread with a solution. The app also seems a little buggy. I’m still getting error messages and requests to set up the 4D screen mirroring calibration again. I’m sure it will get fixed in future updates. The installation was painful for me. Still, once it was working, I soon realized it was worth all that time and trouble. I hope Nanoleaf figures out the issue so it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

(Editor’s note: Nanoleaf sent a sample for the blog’s French reviewer, Myriam, and she did not experience any problems with her sample.)

Nanoleaf 4D Center 2

Take your TV experience to the next level

If you don’t have a smart home, start with smart lights. If you’re a gamer, movie watcher, or music lover, check out the Nanoleaf 4D Screen Wi-Fi Mirror. It’s perfect for any entertainment, gaming, or home theatre room. Kids will love it. Impress your friends and family with a light show. Remember, life is short. So do yourself a favour and take your TV experience to the next level with the Nanoleaf 4D Screen Wifi Mirror.   

Andy Baryer
Andy Baryer
http://handyandymedia.com
Andy Baryer aka “Handy Andy” is a technology journalist, gadget reviewer, and DIY/how-to content creator. Known as the handyman of tech, Andy enjoys fixing poor wireless networks, building smart homes, and cooking with the latest kitchen gadgets. He’s a competitive whistler, a budding woodworker, and loves gardening in his home-built smart garden.
Facebook Instagram Linkedin Youtube Xing

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

118 COMMENTS

  5. I don’t have any Nanoleaf products yet – I have some cheap knockoffs and I have definitely learned my lesson.
    I’d love to use them whilst I’m watching movies or playing some relaxing games to chill out.

  7. We don’t have any Nanoleaf lights yet – but we are movie buffs, gamers, and music lovers – it would be amazing with everything!

  16. I do not own any Nanoleaf lights but I believe my gaming hobby would most benefit from an installation of Nanoleaf 4D in my home.

  17. I don’t own any Nanoleaf items but am looking forward for them to enhance my movie experience. They simply look fantastic.

  18. We have the latest Samsung 8k TV and it is wonderful. However, we have to adjust three sets of room lights to get the right ambience to watch movies. We do not have any background lights and we don’t want to have any bulky Iinstlaations behind the TV While we currently don’t own any Nanoleaf lights, we would love to have the Wi-Fi Mirror.

    https://nanoleaf.me/en-CA/products/nanoleaf-4d/?category=4D&size=65

    https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/nanoleaf-4d-screen-wifi-mirror-65-light-strip-black-exclusive-retail-partner/17163109

  20. We don’t currently own any, but I’m very interested by the idea of putting some behind the TV for movies.

  21. I don’t currently own any Nanoleaf products. I enjoy gaming and movies, and would love to enhance my experience of both with the Nanoleaf 4D.

  22. I don’t have any Nanoleaf lights yet, but would love to get the Nanoleaf Shapes Triangle Panels to enhance my experience watching movies and listening to music!

  30. Sadly I don’t own any Nanoleaf products yet, but I would love some bright colourful panels to really bring my video game hobby to life!

  33. I don’t have any of these lights but they look really cool. I’d probably put some in my office/gaming room

  35. We currently don’t own any Nanoleaf products – so anything would be great! We game and we watch movies, so that would be greatly enhanced by the lights.

  38. I don’t currently own any! But I feel like movies would benefit the most. Imagine how more immersive it would feel!

  39. I currently have one pack (which is 7 panels) of the hexagon lights and I love them so much! Listening to music would be my main use for the Nanoleaf 4D. Thanks for the chance!

  44. I don’t own any Nanoleaf lights and haven’t heard of them until reading this article but would love to have them in my life. These lights would benefit me most for watching movies/shows and tv in general as well as gaming.

  45. I currently do not own any Nanoleaf products. I love gaming and watching movies, the nanoleaf 4d would add a new dimension to both of those activities.

  46. I don’t own any NanoLeaf lights, but this would be perfect for making movie nights even more cinematic!

  48. I do not own any Nanoleaf lights at this time, but I can see how they would add to family movie night, games on the Switch and even just a fun music dance party with the kids. What I would look forward to the most, would be being more immersed in a great movie!

  50. I currently don’t have any Nanoleaf lights and the kind of content that I would use this with is movies and gaming.

Newer Comments »

Comments are closed.