Indoor smart lights are great, but outdoor smart lights impress me even more. You can turn them on and off without braving the elements, and almost all outdoor lights now come with color-changing LEDs. You can instantly change light colors and create dynamic scenes with just the push of a button on your phone. That being said, string lights tend to perform poorly in weather conditions, are prone to water ingress, burnout, and in my experience, don't last longer than a season or two. Professional versions of these same lights may be more rugged, but are prohibitively expensive. The long-awaited Nanoleaf Outdoor String Light (starting at $99.99) promises to bridge that gap, making a sturdy, smart outdoor string light accessible to everyone.
Sturdy workmanship
I'm a big fan of string lights but have been repurchasing them frequently over the past 10 years because you have to keep replacing them. There's a big difference between a cheap string light that connects to a standard residential-sized power cord and one that uses commercial-grade string lights (E26 bulbs with 55 lumens each). You may have seen the latter on restaurant patios or other commercial spaces. While cheaper residential lights don't actually require additional supports, commercial stringers often use support wires. You can string a wire between the anchor points and hang the lights from the wire.
Nanoleaf’s outdoor lights are a good in-between product. They look like commercial lights, and each light has the same weight and individual pendant posts, so you can hang them from wires or attach them directly to your home. They don't require support wires, but they are heavy and require strong anchors if you don't use support wires. There are faceted E26 teardrop lights every 24 inches, strung on durable black wire. The chandeliers themselves are sturdy—they don't look or feel like thin globes like most LED lights. The facets are made of heavy-duty plastic, making it look much more expensive than it actually is. They ship in foam, so it's very difficult for any of them to break during shipping. You can connect multiple strings, which have a six-foot lead with a small controller.
Color and motion schemes available in the app
These lights are part of the Nanoleaf Matter series, so connecting them is super easy. Once I plugged them into an outlet, the app quickly found them and paired them by scanning a QR code on the controller. From there, you add them to "rooms." On the Nanoleaf app, rooms are a way of grouping lights so they can have the same effect, although this is also affected by the product family they're in. All Matter products tend to have the same effect, and you can definitely use your new hanging string lights with the Nanoleaf holiday lights I reviewed last year. Rather than simply turning these lights on and off, you can choose any of millions of colors, but you're more likely to choose a color scheme. Since these are programmable LEDs, you can have the string lights switch from one color to another, or have multiple colors at once and pair them with movement. This sounds cheesy, but what I love about Nanoleaf is that its effects are often subtle and beautiful, and the app comes preloaded with some tasteful gradient effects. You can download other plans from other users or make your own, it's very easy. Like all Nanoleaf products, these are sound-responsive, meaning you can choose a color scheme that syncs with your music. A complaint among users about the Nanoleaf app is that the product often goes "offline" or is inaccessible. While this is absolutely true, I've found that quitting the app and reopening it is the workaround for these issues most of the time. Another issue I have with the app is this: I usually want all Nanoleaf items to have the same sports/color scheme, but different product groups can only match each other, something Nanoleaf says they plan to fix. This isn’t a big deal in the outdoors – it seems like all outdoor products are built into each other these days.
Multi-faceted design looks great
I admit, the design of the faceted bulbs didn't appeal to me when the box arrived, and I don't know that I would have chosen them myself (Nanoleaf provided these lights for review). However, once presented, these aspects won me over for several reasons. First, they produced a lighting effect that felt novel. Once lit, they create a fun popping effect. Once you layer the color, in a soft gradient, it casts a really beautiful light. Even in plain old cool white, the lights have a much more sophisticated look than regular string lights. The changes in color and movement happen very gently and slowly.
Well worth the money if you can survive the winter
I hope this is the start of more outdoor lights from Nanoleaf. I ended up hanging them like chandeliers under my patio and absolutely love the look of it. Granted, I haven't spent a winter with these lights yet, and they're only rated for 5°F, but they certainly seem sturdier than any other lights I've purchased. Starting April 11, you can purchase the base kit with the controller for $99.99, with expansion kits priced at $69.99. Looking at commercial string light kits, the price feels very competitive and you get all the smart features, which in this case is a real win.
