One of my favorite smart finds of the past year was the Nanoleaf smart light panels, which I dubbed “light dopamine.” I now have a house of Nanoleaf LEDs scattered throughout the home, filling it with color, and I expanded that outdoors over the holidays. With Nanoleaf’s latest offering, the Skylight ($249.99 for a set of three panels), they’re diving into hardwired products. Like all products that rely on smart technology, there are occasional hiccups, but overall I’m incredibly pleased with the Skylight and have a hunch it could fill a lighting void in your home.

Nanoleaf has been teasing the Skylight since Q2 2023 and I couldn’t wait to try it out. I had a hallway that was begging for more light and I planned to install a row of Skylights right down the middle. I’ve had them installed for a few weeks and they’ve brightened up the hallway enough that I can now see that it’s time to paint the baseboards. Unlike the previous fixture, which lit one spot, the Skylight can extend well beyond the original fixture into the hallway without any additional wiring. Think about that: if you have wiring in the middle of your room’s ceiling, your fixture is likely going to be radiating light from that one spot. With the Skylight, you start at the location of your wiring and extend outward. As smart bulbs, they can wake you up by gently turning on for a few minutes. I have them set to dim in the evening and only come on at 10% if I get up in the middle of the night. They also match the rest of my Nanoleaf lights for a subtle lighting theme that moves with the music I'm playing. As fixtures they're pretty innocuous when off, but pack quite a punch when on.

Each of the Skylight panels is just under 12×12 square. Since they are attached to each other on each side, you mount them flush against each other. Although they are made of plastic, their matte finish makes them look dramatically more expensive. That said, I imagine the higher your ceilings are, the better the effect will be. At a lower height, they felt like a throwback to the fluorescent kitchen lighting I grew up with.

The Nanoleaf wall panels, which come in many shapes and sizes, have been hacked to work on the ceiling for years, and I can easily imagine Nanoleaf expanding the Skylight into other forms. Their website shows a number of configurations that show how the lights can be arranged more organically than my straight line to dress the room.