LIFX Tile Kit
ATTRACTIVE AND CUSTOMISABLE LIGHT ART FOR YOUR WALL.
IF YOU’RE LOOKING to spice up a barren corner of your home, the voice-assistant compatible LIFX Tile will be a great addition to your connected home... with a few set-up concessions.
A LIFX Tile pack consists of five colorchanging tiled panels, which affix to your wall using sticky (yet easy to remove without damaging your surfaces) Command Strip adhesive pads. Each tile measures 7.87 x 7.87 x 1.37inches, and the tiles can be placed in any way you like along your wall, only restricted by the length of their power cables – the main one leading to a power socket measures two metres, while the connecting cables that link each tile together are 0.4m in length.
That’s more than enough cabling to create interesting patterns on your wall, but remember that if you don’t sit the tiles side-by-side you’ll have visible white cabling between each square. Each Tile does have a cable tidy area around the back of each panel, but it’s incredibly tricky to keep them tucked away into place while attaching them to your wall. As a result, you may give up on some of your more adventurous tiling patterns.
You can turn on the LIFX Tile and use it as a regular lighting array just by plugging it into the wall and flipping the switch, but to take advantage of the connected and color changing features, you’re going to have to get it online with the LIFX app for iOS and Android.
Setup is theoretically simple, but in practice rather more complex. The Tile regularly couldn’t be identified, and even when it was, it took a few attempts before the set-up process would complete without the Tile confusing what it needed to connect to, or what the correct order the tiles were placed in. In other instances, only one Tile was detected, or only four. Persistence is key.
It’s a far from a seamless installation then – but the memories of the struggle melt away once you’ve got the LIFX Tile up and running.
Once you’ve got the shades and hues of each Tile to your liking, you can then apply different effects to the lights. They vary in usefulness and comfort, from a flickering candle to a strobe light. There’s a few good party option, the strobe included, and we’re particularly fond of the music visualiser, which syncs lighting pulses and patterns with the audio picked up by your phone’s microphone.
Whether you’re using Amazon Alexa, Apple’s HomeKit devices with Siri or Google Assistant, you’ll be able to talk to the Tile to change its colors, power status and more. There’s also a function to program a day and night cycle for the LIFX Tile too. It’s a nice feature if you decide to place the LIFX Tile in a bedroom – there’s more to it than just night time ‘mood lighting’... Having flickering orange firelight to go to sleep and wake up to is really quite calming, and it’s quite capable of lighting smaller rooms by itself. If you can struggle through the fiddly set-up process, the LIFX Tile is a lovely addition to a home in need of a splash of color.
WHETHER YOU’RE USING AMAZON ALEXA, APPLE’S HOMEKIT DEVICES WITH SIRI OR GOOGLE ASSISTANT, YOU’LL BE ABLE TO TALK TO THE TILE TO CHANGE ITS COLORS, POWER STATUS AND MORE.