However you celebrate in the deep, dark winter, these lights can help. Photo: Nanoleaf
New Nanoleaf Essentials Matter Smart Holiday String Lights — with support for the new Matter standard and all smart-home plaforms, including HomeKit — are coming in time for winter holidays, the company said Thursday.
Or maybe even in time for Halloween, for that matter. At any rate, it’s almost time to get festive.
It may be described as "4D," but don't expect stuff to actually burst out of your screen. Photo: Nanoleaf
Nanoleaf says its new 4D Screen Mirror Camera and Lightstrip Kit will “take your entertainment experience beyond the screen.” And now you can finally preorder the hardware, which the company unveiled at CES in January.
Once it ships, you get a big light strip to set up behind your TV. The camera lights it up with colors reflecting what’s on the screen. And you can mix in other Nanoleaf smart lights, too.
A light strip -- in this case one from Nanoleaf -- can make a big difference. Photo: TjDeAdPoOl@Reddit.com
A humble light strip can have a huge impact on a computer setup and even the room it’s in, providing functional lighting as well as setting a mood with white or colored lights at different temperatures (cool, warm, etc.). Today’s featured MacBook Pro setup uses nothing but a Nanoleaf Essentials light strip behind the desk and a Xiaomi monitor lamp to light its way. And they do so to great effect.
Read more about the lighting below, plus the setup’s use of a Sonos Bluetooth speaker for audio and an iPhone with Continuity Camera for effective videoconferencing.
See the special-edition all-black Shapes turned off, at left, and turned on, at right. Photo: Nanoleaf
Celebrating its “10-year Nanoversary,” Nanoleaf put out a special edition of its Shapes smart-lighting panels. It’s a new all -black color option: Ultra Black Shapes Triangles.
Like the other colors, the new set works with HomeKit as part of your smart-home lighting.
It looks like a comfy chair, but you can only get it in Germany. Photo: pixel205@Reddit.com
We don’t run across huge numbers of computer setups online driven by M1 MacBook Air laptops. When a laptop is the main computer, it’s more often a MacBook Pro.
But a MacBook Air powered by an M1 chip is a formidable machine, whether you’re tossing it in your knapsack for work on the go or leaving it on a stand on your desk, jacked into a USB-C hub and external display.
An M1 MacBook Air drives today’s featured setup — located in Germany — which also features some interesting bits and pieces we haven’t seen elsewhere. Those are a nifty Marshall wireless speaker and a foot hammock.
You can change up the look of Nanoleaf Lines lights with new skins. Photo: Nanoleaf
Nanoleaf rolled out its new Lines Skins Tuesday. They attach to the Nanoleaf Lines lights to change the color of their white plastic bars. That can help them blend in nicely with a room’s design and decor.
This year's looking good! Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Even more details surface about Apple’s hardware plans for 2022. If last year was “modest” (LOL), this year looks jam-packed with major updates. We’re talking redesigned AirPods Pro, a new Apple monitor, even-more-impressive MacBook Airs and … an iPhone? You gotta be kidding us.
Also on The CultCast:
Apple hits $3 trillion market cap, albeit briefly.
A giveaway that features a great-looking charger from Journey.
The most interesting products out of this year’s big CES trade show in Las Vegas.
Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video livestream, embedded below.
CES 2022 brought daily announcements of new devices with Apple’s HomeKit home-automation system. Photo: Cult of Mac
There is a lot to get HomeKit fans excited at this year’s CES tech showcase in Las Vegas. Quite a few companies announced products that will support Apple’s home-automation system, including lights, door cameras and more.
Glitzy projects like concept cars get more attention, but HomeKit accessories are more likely to make people’s lives better.
Nanoleaf's groovy mood lighting products will soon be Thread border routers for HomeKit devices. Photo: Nanoleaf
At CES 2022, Nanoleaf said an upcoming firmware update will make its lighting products the first third-party border routers for HomeKit-over-Thread devices available now and coming out in the future.
The firmware update, due to roll out in the first quarter of 2022, will broaden Nanoleaf products’ support for Thread, improving devices’ connectivity and reliability over home networks.