DIY Nanoleaf LED Panels Offer Peace Of Mind

Nanoleaf light panels are a popular product for creating glowing geometric designs on walls. However, for those that like to avoid IoT devices that integrate with big cloud services, they’re not ideal, and involve compromising on one’s privacy, somewhat. [Viktor] decided to build something of his own instead to avoid this problem.

The design is that of an equilateral triangle, which allows the panels to tesselate well. Each panel consists of two 3D printed parts. The black PLA base holds the WS2812B LED strips, cabling, and ESP8266 controller, while a white PLA cover goes over the top, which acts as a diffuser to spread the light from the individual LEDs. Each triangle contains 24 LEDs, and six triangles together consume around 1.6 amps when in use.

The benefit of the system is that it’s not controlled from a company’s cloud system, which can be shutdown at any time. [Viktor’s] setup runs entirely independently, and can be controlled from a simple web page. Plus, there’s nothing stopping him from modifying the code to use the panels for any purpose; commercial products like Nanoleaf don’t offer anywhere near the flexibility of building your own.

We’ve seen others build their own smart lighting with similar techniques before, too. Video after the break.

14 thoughts on “DIY Nanoleaf LED Panels Offer Peace Of Mind

  1. i always wonder (though i can guess) why they don’t use some actually decent acrylic panels like “plexiglass led” from ROHR or similar.
    it cost a tad much but the effect would be so much more even and pristine. and comparing to nanoleaf it would still be cheaper.

    1. someone already designed 3d printable ones on thingiverse and the diffusion on those is nearly perfect, someone else used reflector film amd diffusion film from broken screens and those were perfect but the efforts a a tad bit too much

      1. ROHM (twas a typo) is a company that among other stuff makes acrylic sheets, rods etc under the brand name plexiglass (the original one). their ‘plexiglas led’ has very good characteristics for edge or side lighting applications. i bought some small samples and man their stuff does work very well. the plexiglas led panels spread light very evenly over the surface without much losses.

    2. I could see some reasons to “print it”

      1) the 3d printer can do it and you already has it (yes I know, it isnt quite a good arguments).

      2) Plus, plastic on your printer is cheap AF.

      2) you may need to find a good source, with a decent price. I personally have issue with finding store in the first place, then when I look at the price… Yike…

      3) (go with 2) shipping time. As a “I want to try many thing” I also try to go with cheap price, unfortunately they are shipped from china.

  2. Never understood the minor popularity of these, they look incredibly cheap and tacky. Even having light patterns is ridiculously simple thanks to a multitude of WiFi, Bluetooth or cabled preprogrammed controllers available from Aliexpress or Ebay some presoldered with connectors that can be daisy chained to create very long steps or shape of your choosing.
    I don’t mean any disrespect to the guy who diyd a clone of an existing product just that the product even when shop bought looks like a reject from a 50s B movie.

  3. Bloody hell, just the “starter pack” for a real nanoleaf is AUD350! And it invades your privacy! No thank you. Good job [Viktor] for making something objectively _better_ than the commercial offering!

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