Nanoleaf bets its future on robots, red light therapy, and AI

Smart lighting company Nanoleaf has been unusually quiet recently. While competitors such as Govee and Philips Hue have been pumping out new products and innovative features at an impressive pace, Nanoleaf has launched just a handful of smart lighting products in the last two years. There’s a reason for this lull — the company has been going through a “brand evolution” focused on wellness, robotics, and, of course, AI. “The smart home is getting kind of boring,” says the ever-candid Gimmy Chu, CEO and cofounder of Nanoleaf, which he now doesn’t want me to call a smart lighting company. “Our brand needs to evolve to incorporate some of the other products that we’re going to be releasing.” “The smart home is getting kind of boring.” — Gimmy Chu Nanoleaf is best known for its customizable, interactive RGB lighting ecosystem, with products like its modular lighting panels and software that mirrors lights to what’s on your computer or television screen . It was an early adopter of Thread and Matter , and its smart bulb was one of the first Thread products to work with Apple’s HomePod Mini when it launched in 2020. But Chu says open standards like Matter are leading to the commodification of smart lighting — as evidenced by companies like Ikea selling full-color smart lightbulbs for around $10 that work with every platform. This is something he and others predicted when Matter launched nearly four years ago. …