Transform your walls with a smart light insta llat ion

Enjoy a world of custom colours and slick voice control, all with LIFX’s excellent app at the heart of it

Atmosphere is all-important in the modern home. In fact, there might be no better way of generating a specific mood or vibe than by having the right lighting, and that’s where LIFX seems to be focusing most of its efforts these days. The brand’s ceiling or lamp bulbs are just the tip of the iceberg – the company is pushing security lighting with its infra-red emitting LIFX+ line, it has downlights, light strips and light bars… Basically, wherever you need a splash of colour, this Kickstarter success story is determined to splash it there for you.

The Tile, one of LIFX’s latest products, makes the jump from light to wall feature, almost leaping so far as to become digital art. Its big, bold, smart illumination designed to create a conversation as much as it is to help you relax and enjoy your living area. The Tile is a way to fill a space with something practical. It is, we must say, pretty damn cool.

Part of the Tile’s appeal comes in its design, a simple setup that uses LIFX’s system of individually addressable bulbs, each with its own Homekit code should you wish to use it. The individual tiles are chained together, connected to a single power source and operated as a single entity. They’re covered in diffuse plastic, opaque enough to completely obscure and combine the LE D array below, but with no hard edge. That means the light of each blossoms out onto your wall.

Each tile can take on a kaleidoscope of colours at once. They can also be configured to show bright individual colours, to use different white temperatures or brightnesses, and be arranged with others in whatever configuration (within the short length of the connecting cables wires) you see fit. You can, naturally, use them with all the gimmicks of the LIFX app, tying them together as a music visualiser, giving them random patterns, or animating themes like some jumped-up, modern- day lava lamp.

So the Tile (or a combination of Tiles) is a tool for ambiance and a tool for fun. You won’t use it to light up your entire room – it doesn’t quite throw out the lumens of a proper bulb, and you’ll generally need full light to come from the ceiling rather than a wall – but for those spots where you want something special, highlight lighting like the Tile is hard to beat.