
Almost every person in the world uses light bulbs.
Nanoleaf Essentials and Lifx have turned a basic bulb into smart lighting, which changes the mood of any setting.
Although similar in what they have to offer, these two companies also have a few key differences.
Lifx offers a large variety of smart bulbs with incredible light quality. However, Nanoleaf Essentials guarantees a reliable connection using Thread. It also delivers excellent accent lighting for your room. Although a quarter of the price, Nanoleaf Essentials stands as a strong competitor to Lifx.
In this article, I’ll discuss the main differences between Nanoleaf Essentials and Lifx.
I’ll also take a look at why these two smart-bulbs are at the top of their market.
All in all, I’ll help you make the choice that best works for your home.
5 Differences Between Nanoleaf Essentials and Lifx
You may feel torn between which smart lighting company is better.
However, it depends on what price range, quality, design, and features you are looking for to suit your home best.
1. Price Range
The price range is one of the most significant differences between Nanoleaf Essentials and Lifx.
Although both smart bulbs are a bit pricey, the Nanoleaf Essential bulbs knock Lifx out of the park with their level of affordability.
They are about a quarter of the price of the Lifx bulbs. The same is true for the light strips.
For those looking for affordable lighting, the Nanoleaf Essentials are the first affordable lights that they’ve produced.
Thankfully, they’ve been able to keep their products reasonable without losing their high level of performance and quality.
For a Lifx bulb, you’re typically going to pay around $60 and close to $90 for their light strips.
For a Nanoleaf Essentials bulb, you could expect to pay a great price of around $20 and about $50 for their light strips.
It’s easy to see that Nanoleaf Essentials wins in affordability.
2. Design
Both the Nanoleaf Essential and the Lifx smart-bulbs are known for their extraordinary designs.
In fact, Lifx prides itself in being a design business. This description says a lot about the aesthetics they have to offer.
Common bulbs are not aesthetically pleasing to the eye, and most homes cover up their bulbs with pretty lampshades.
This cover-up doesn’t have to be the case with both the Nanoleaf Essentials and the Lifx bulbs.
These smart bulbs are so artistically designed that you may want to throw your lampshades away to show off the bulbs’ incredible structure and detail.
The Nanoleaf Essentials offer a light strip and a19 or e26 bulb.
This bulb is a standard bulb that you can twist into most of your lamps, which is excellent because you won’t have to go out and buy a special lamp to accommodate your new bulb.
The light strip looks like a typical light strip. However, it is a wide, thick strip that may give you problems if bent over corners in strange ways.
You may find yourself slightly limited in your use of these strips.
The light strips can have extensions added to them, which is handy. They also have sections within the strip that you can cut off to shorten if desired. It comes with a controller, which Lifx’s strips don’t offer.
The Nanoleaf Essentials change as a solid color. They don’t have color zones that offer a selection of colors within the same bulb or strip, which Lifx does.
The Nanoleaf Essentials bulb has a similar design to that of a golf ball.
Due to this shape, the bulb has 62 sides and 120 edges, according to the Nanoleaf YouTube video that you can check here:
The Lifx light strip also has a generic appearance but is thinner and more flexible than the Nanoleaf Essential light strip.
There’s a much larger variety of Lifx bulbs than the Nanoleaf Essentials bulbs and a few different designs throughout those.
The various Lifx bulb designs give you options to choose from and may inspire you to theme each room according to the bulb.
The different designs show off a dome-shaped bulb, a short flat-topped bulb, and a bulb that, either intentionally or unintentionally, resembles a popsicle.
You may also wonder: Will smart bulbs work in any fixture?
3. Quality
If you’re buying a product, you want to know that it will be of good quality. Both the Nanoleaf Essentials and Lifx hold up a decent standard.
The Nanoleaf Essentials bulbs stand out above the rest when it comes to their bright whites.
They also offer a range of cool and warm white temperatures. However, the Lifx colors are more saturated and vibrant than Nanoleaf Essentials’.
The Lifx website claims that their kelvin temperature range goes from 2500 – 9000K.
The Nanoleaf Essentials fall short with their kelvin temperature range of 2700 – 6000K.
Nanoleaf Essentials bulbs are bright enough to light up a room reasonably.
Although the bulb gives off good colors, they’re a bit washed out compared to Lifx’s.
I wouldn’t recommend using them to replace your bulbs on high ceilings as you may not receive the quality of light you are hoping for.
Lifx may be a better option for this.
They work best in bedrooms, hallways, and any other areas that need moderate lighting.
This bulb is ideal for any desk area and creates a brilliant ambiance.
The Nanoleaf Essentials and Lifx bulbs are both energy efficient, and both have an incredible lifespan of 25 000 hours.
The Lifx website claims that their bulbs have a lifespan of 22 years if used for 3 hours per day.
However, many people report that their Lifx bulbs don’t last as long as their Nanoleaf Essentials ones. Thankfully both have a warranty of 2 years.
Check out: Why Are Smart Bulbs So Dim? 5 Real Reasons & Solutions
4. Connectivity
The Nanoleaf Essentials take the lead with connectivity as they are thread-enabled, unlike Lifx.
Nanoleaf Essentials is the first of its kind to work with Thread.
Thread is a mesh network protocol whereby different devices in the network communicate with each other.
If one connection dies, it’ll jump to a stronger connection instead of relying on one connection source, such as wifi.
The result of Nanoleaf Essentials being Thread-enabled is an immediate, reliable, and stable network that rarely experiences drop connections.
Thread is designed for smart homes and works with the Apple HomePod Mini and other Thread-enabled devices.
If you don’t have an Apple HomePod Mini, you can use the Bluetooth option.
However, you’ll have a poor, slow response with Bluetooth, which can become very annoying. They don’t use wifi.
Lifx uses wifi.
When compared, Lifx using wifi has a slight lag while the Nanoleaf Essentials using Thread respond immediately.
Lifx is more likely to lose connection and have to be reconnected, whereas it is rare for the Nanoleaf Essentials to experience this problem on Thread.
5. Features
Both of these smart bulbs come with an array of features, some the same and some that differ.
I’ve compiled a table of the most common features available so that you can compare and see which features Lifx has and which Nanoleaf Essentials have to offer.
If you don’t see a feature you desire on Lifx or Nanoleaf Essentials listed below, stay tuned to their websites as they continuously work on updates to improve their products.
Nanoleaf Essentials | Lifx | |
Adaptive Lighting | ✓ | ✓ |
Customized Schedules | ✓ | ✓ |
Thread-enabled | ✓ | メ |
16 Million+ Colors | ✓ | ✓ |
App | ✓ | ✓ |
Voice Command | ✓ | ✓ |
Fade duration | メ | ✓ |
HEV Light | メ | ✓ |
Scene Creations | ✓ | ✓ |
Brightness Sensor | ✓ | メ |
Notifications | メ | ✓ |
Music Visualizer | メ | ✓ |
Final Thoughts
Lifx may have deeper, more saturated colors in their palette.
However, it comes at a price that many don’t deem worthy compared to the close quality and features that Nanoleaf Essentials offer.
If you’re new to smart bulbs and are eager to give them a chance, you can purchase them on their respective websites or Amazon.com.
Read next: Philips Hue vs. Nanoleaf: 3 Main Differences Compared