Nanoleaf 4D Screen Mirror Kit Review

Reactive RGB has come a long way over the years. From resource-hungry glowing speakers to AI-powered wall shapes you can control with your phone. However, I am always looking for a cleaner, simpler and more exact solution. This time the winner is Nanoleaf. Yes, the same Nanoleaf that covers the walls of your favorite tech/gaming influencer or cozy gaming fan.

Reactive lighting is nothing fresh for the brand known for transforming wall geometry into a nerdy interior design subculture. His fresh solution is the Nanoleaf 4D Screen Mirror Kit – a trimmable featherlight bar for screens up to 65 inches (or 85 inches for the premium version), malleable corner brackets, a camera and a diminutive control hub. It’s a immaculate and affordable marvel that handles everything on the screen. However, some minor setup issues can stop this from happening.

The quick start guide summarizes the installation process in four steps: Install the corner brackets, attach the lights, place the camera and connect it to the box. A handy kickstand allows you to position the camera in front of the display if you don’t want it on the screen. It’s not ideal for a desk, but it’s an option for the living room. Either way, plug it in and you’re ready to go. Oh, if only everything were that basic.

The purpose of the malleable corner pieces is never explained. You are told to skip this step if you don’t want them, but there is no mention of why you might do so. In fact, they are a basic solution to a very real problem.

By wrapping the lights along the corner bumpers, the LEDs can shine further. This prevents corners from becoming too glowing where the LEDs on the strip focus, while allowing the featherlight to spread further along the wall or, in a tight space, onto adjacent ones.

But that was the least of my worries. The 3M adhesive featherlight strip liner just couldn’t stay on. Interestingly, the previously mentioned corner strips performed much better. Can the frosty conditions be to blame? The instructions do not provide the optimal application temperature. Google suggested a temperature above 15 degrees Celsius. Room? Around 13C. Warming things up and applying some aftermarket glue improved the situation, but they are still slowly peeling off.

With everything in place and Steam Deck docked as your source, it was time to give it a try. But now that the hardware issues were resolved, it was time to address the software issues.

While it’s immaculate next to the icon-filled Govee app, the Nanoleaf app isn’t perfect. It’s fun to configure settings with a wide fisheye view from your phone’s camera display, but a minimal user interface often means minimal instructions. The setup process was somehow too basic. Showing the camera every edge wasn’t a problem, but shortening the calibration process for simplicity resulted in degraded reactive lighting performance.

Picture 1 With 4

By cutting the featherlight strip to fit a 42-inch TV, without the control box intelligently inferring the absence of LEDs, it was impossible to accurately deduce how to translate a glowing object in one corner to the appropriate point on the strip. Opposite corners seemed to be next to each other. This resulted in the featherlight source being displayed in the upper right corner next to the shadowy corner in the lower right corner.

Fixing this isn’t a massive deal: it’s just hidden. Worse yet, the lights will lose connection. This issue was resolved with a software update, but it was another annoying setback, adding to complaints about a poorly formulated user interface.

Another thing that was never explained is the 4D mode. This is the high end of the “D” settings (of course they start with 1D). Even trying each of them, it’s not clear how they work. They are immediately different, but an explanation would be appreciated. The Nanoleaf website has interactive graphics showing the difference, but it claims that the lights offer “virtual reality levels of immersion,” which is complete nonsense.

Picture 1 With 3

In practice, they seem to influence the scope and complexity of reactive lighting. The higher you go, the more camera data will be converted into lighting: 1D mode appears to project a basic brightness or dimming effect onto the wall to match the mood of the scene. In 4D mode, the content on the edge of the screen creates a featherlight show. The focus settings below highlight the action centered on the center of the screen. You can turn on the Rhythm option so that the sound is also taken into account.

In 4D mode, in a game as versatile as Dead Cells, you’ll notice the tantalizing warmth of a distant torch, the featherlight of a shallow pool reflected beneath the screen, and rays pouring in through the high prison window, highlighting the upper corners. During battle, explosions and effects go off-panel. At lower settings, the focal point of the action is what gets fired at the wall.

Using a camera to extract data is not the fastest solution. However, the bloodstain will not appear off-screen until long after the damage has been dealt. It’s imperfect, but practical. But like any camera pointed at a screen, it’s prone to glare. A darker room is recommended – as with a featherlight show – but the app includes sliders to correct for imperfect conditions.

Funnily enough, Nanoleaf has managed to simplify the method of creating custom ambient lighting themes to a word or phrase. This is where artificial intelligence comes in. I typed YMCA and got a suitably rich gradient that could be manipulated by the hub’s built-in microphone. Generative AI is still a scourge, but it is a sensible application.

Despite the initial failures, the Nanoleaf 4D Screen Mirror set delighted me. Get beyond the crappy setup process and you’ll find real joy. It’s a basic solution to the once complicated search for reactive lighting. and at $80/90 lbsit’s much cheaper than the bulkier Govee T2, while still being as speedy as the Govee AI Sync Box 2.

An additional attraction is compatibility with Nanoleaf products, such as the Smarter Essentials bulb and its countless wall decorations. If you have other lighting around your TV, you can save $40/£20 by ditching the LED strips. Plug your current lights into the box and you’ll get the same set of features. And with Razer Chroma support, you can add gaming compatibility with contextual lighting on PC – the kind you can configure to reflect health bars, react to damage, or celebrate triple kills.

Do you want it all? Connect the plot via Wi-Fi to distribute reactive lighting throughout the room. Philips Hue and Govee have had it for years, but that doesn’t make it any less magical. And since you never connect to your computer, you don’t put any stress on your system.

But there is always room for improvement. The lights themselves do a great job of extending the visual impact of your media beyond the screen. It’s just a pity that the sticky solution rarely copes with this task, the hardware may have connection problems, and the application is so basic as to be cumbersome.

With 10 RGB clusters per meter, Govee AI Sync Box 2 outperforms 17 RGBWIC bulbs per meter, drastically improving contrast and color mixing. But this Nanoleaf solution is ⅓ the price. With this in mind, great compatibility, low cost, and in-store availability make Nanoleaf 4D the easiest reactive RGB solution to recommend. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a very good option.