One quick and easy way to personalize the look and feel of any room or home office is to add RGB lights, including the popular wall panels that Nanoleaf offers. I’ve reviewed several of the company’s products, and the Nanoleaf Lines are by far my favorite. And with the recently launched Skins accessory for Lines, you’re able to add even more personalization to your wall in just a few seconds.
Skins come in black or pink and snap-on or in place of your current Lines installation. You can pick up a pack of nine skins and nine caps for $19.99.
I installed the Skins on my Lines a few days ago, and appreciate the new look to my Lines. There are, however, a couple of things I would change about them.
A simple smart home upgrade for Nanoleaf fans
If you use Nanoleaf Lines as your smart lighting at home, the Skins are a cheap and simple upgrade that let you further personalize the look of your room.
What we loved about it
Installation is easy
When you open the box, you’ll see nine Skins that fit over the top of each individual Line. You don’t need to detach the Line itself; just leave it attached to the connector and snap the Skin over the top of it. There won’t be an audible click when it’s pressed all the way down, so don’t press too hard.
The hardest part of the installation is replacing the cap for each connector. It takes a good amount of force to remove the cap — enough that I thought I was going to pull the connector off my wall. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. The new color caps are easy to push into place.
All told, it took less than five minutes to complete the installation. The longest part of that was deciding if I should put the Skins on every Line or leave some of them white.
Black makes the colors pop
I didn’t have an issue with the white Lines and the way the RGB colors looked. However, now that I’ve spent a couple of days with the black sleeves over my Lines, the bright colors look so much better due to the contrast the black color provides.
I don’t have the pink Skins on hand to comment on how they look, but I imagine that adding some color in front of the lights will help.
It’s an affordable accessory
Nanoleaf’s products are expensive, and so I fully expected that the Skins would follow suit. For example, a basic smarter kit with nine Lines costs $179.99 right now. An expansion pack that includes just three additional Lines is $59.99, or roughly $20 per Line.
If you stick to the smarter kit and the nine Lines it includes, you’ll spend another $20 — so $200 all in — for either Pink or Black Skins.
What we didn’t like about it
The connector’s base and controller are still white
A nit-picky gripe I have is that the base of the connectors where each Line attaches and provides power to other Lines is still white and visible, which distracts from the new skinned version of your Lines. My wall is white and at times I don’t see the connectors at all, but at other times, the white base really clashes with the black aesthetic.
On top of that, the controller that houses buttons you can use to control the lights and where the power plugs into the Lines is still white. There isn’t a way to replace the cap, nor are there other color options.
There are only two color options
Black and pink are both fantastic, but it’d be great to see more color options. Maybe even some that are brighter and more neon-like to play off of the RGB color options that the lights offer. For example, Nanoleaf’s Elements line offers a more natural wood finish that would look great on Lines.
Bottom line
The Nanoleaf Lines already looked great before the rollout of Skins, but now with additional colors through an affordable accessory, you can fully personalize the look of your room. And at $20 for enough pieces to cover the $179 Smarter Kit, it’s an easy and affordable addition to your RGB setup — if you like black or pink, that is.
