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The wall you are allowed to change your mind about

A fixed fixture makes one decision permanent. Modular panels move that decision into a $9.99 pack of tape.

Updated August 28, 2026 · 10 min read

Buy a ceiling fixture and you have made one decision that outlives everything around it. The sofa moves. The room gets repainted. The desk turns to face the window. The fixture stays exactly where the electrician left it, in exactly the shape it had in the showroom.

Modular light panels are the same category of product with one part taken out: the shape. You buy pieces. The shape happens on your wall, in an app, on a Sunday afternoon, and it is not final.

That sounds like a marketing distinction until you look at what a modular brand actually has to publish. If the shape is not fixed, the catalogue cannot show you one. It has to show you several, made of the same parts, and then admit that yours will be a seventh.

One box, six walls

Nanoleaf sells a bundle called Prismatic Fusion. Inside the box are 18 Triangle light panels and 9 Lines light bars. Twenty seven pieces.

The company publishes six photographs of that bundle. Each one shows a different wall: a cat, a mountain range, a bridge, a diamond field, a chevron, a blade. They are not six products. They are one box, mounted six ways, and Nanoleaf names each arrangement so you can copy it.

Nanoleaf describes the bundle in exactly those terms on its own product page: design your wall like a modular kit, then redesign it whenever inspiration strikes. That is an unusual thing for a lighting company to write down, because it is a promise that the thing you just bought is not finished.

Four parts, and only one of them is the light

A modular wall is easier to reason about once you stop seeing it as a fixture and start seeing it as a small kit of interchangeable parts. There are four.

None of these parts knows the shape

PanelsThe light itself. Hexagons, triangles or bars.

LinkersCarry power and data panel to panel.

ControllerWi-Fi, scenes, Music Sync, Screen Mirror.

Power supply42W or 75W. It sets your ceiling.

Panels are the light. In the Shapes line they come as Hexagons, Triangles and Mini Triangles, and Nanoleaf says you can mix all three in one connected design. Linkers are the small connectors that pass power and data from one panel to the next. The controller holds the Wi-Fi radio, the scenes, Music Sync and Screen Mirror. The power supply sets your ceiling: 42W or 75W, depending on how far you plan to go.

That last part is the one people meet late. It is worth knowing early, because it is the only number that limits how big a wall can get on one plug.

Maximum panels on one controller

Shapes500

Elements80

The four systems, and what each one is actually for

Nanoleaf runs four modular wall systems side by side. They are not four versions of the same thing. They differ in the light they throw, not just in the outline they make.

The one that surprises people is Elements. It has no color at all. Real birchwood veneer, warm white from 1500K to 4000K, 22 lumens per panel, and a 25,000 hour LED lifetime. It is the version you buy when you want the wall to look like considered decor when the lights are off, which is most of the hours in a year.

What changing your mind actually costs

This is the number the category never quotes, so here it is.

Taking a nine panel wall down and putting a different nine panel wall up costs one pack of mounting tape. On nanoleaf.me that pack holds 25 double sided tapes and sells for $9.99. It is $9.99 for Shapes, $9.99 for Elements, and $9.99 for Lines at 60 degrees. One pack covers a re-layout with sixteen tapes to spare.

Set that against the fixed fixture it replaces. A pendant lamp that no longer suits the room is not re-shaped. It is taken down and replaced, and the replacement costs what the first one cost. The modular version puts the same act of changing your mind at under ten dollars, and leaves every panel, linker, controller and power supply exactly where they were on your inventory.

Owners describe the effect without being asked to. On the Shapes reviews, a customer called Mark Bens writes about buying more panels for a wall he already has:

Bought these to supplement my existing Shapes layout since I needed another power supply too anyways, and they are by far the most versatile shape when thinking of expanding your layouts. They are great at filling out "gaps" in your layout.

Mark Bens, verified review published on nanoleaf.me

The one decision that is genuinely hard to undo

There is a step where modular stops being modular, and it is the step everybody underestimates: sticking the first panel.

Everything above it is software. Everything after it is adhesive on a painted wall. The customer reviews are unusually consistent on this point, which is a good sign that it is real rather than rare.

Simple to fit although make sure you are happy with the location before you stick.

Dean Wynne, review of Nanoleaf Elements published on nanoleaf.me

I had a great time designing a layout with the app, and then enjoying the satisfying click of snapping the panels into the connectors. It would have been nice if the app gave measurements for the layout, as it is, I had to work out center lines etc with a pencil.

Thomas Alexander, review of Nanoleaf Elements published on nanoleaf.me

The order that works, in the words of the people who got it right, is: design, mark, then mount. Nanoleaf's own app previews a layout before anything touches the wall, and reviewers say plainly that this is the step that saved them.

I created a pattern that spells out an initial on my wall, it's awesome that you can design it however you want. The app lets you preview the layout before mounting, which helped a lot.

Nina F, review of Nanoleaf Shapes published on nanoleaf.me

The screen Nanoleaf does not publish

And if you already know you are the kind of person who will move it, one Shapes owner has the practical answer, which is worth reading in full because it is a workaround rather than a complaint:

These are really fun. Nice for mood lighting and helps to change the feel of the room instantly. Pro tip: use 3M command strips instead of the double sided tape they provide if think you'll be switching up the layout. Makes it a lot easier for impromptu layout changes.

Anthony, review of Nanoleaf Shapes published on nanoleaf.me

Nanoleaf's own answer to the same problem is the screw mounting plate kit at $19.99, which takes adhesive out of the equation entirely. Either route buys you the same thing: permission to be wrong about the first arrangement.

What the second year looks like

A fixed fixture has no second year. It has the year it was installed, repeated. The reviews for these panels read differently, because owners keep describing what happened after the first wall.

Upgraded from the old triangles and bought a starter kit with the new ones, just moved the old ones in to another room as they still work amazingly after 5 years of use!!

Warren Rolls, review of Nanoleaf Shapes published on nanoleaf.me

We started 2 years ago with a mini-triangle starter pack and have built up to three sets of patterns. The thirteen-piece pack worked out perfectly with our planned expansion. They provide an ever-changing display and a wonderful sidelight during dinners.

Jim Smith, review of Nanoleaf Shapes published on nanoleaf.me

Originally, he was looking at using them for going above our drop-down crown Moulding, but they didn't sit like he wanted in that space, so instead we decided to move them next to our block display and start moving our design from the wall and onto the ceiling.

Rowdy Gaming, review of Nanoleaf Lines published on nanoleaf.me

Note what that last one is: a plan that failed, followed by a different plan, on the same hardware, in the same week. That is only possible in a product where the shape is not the product.

If you rent

All four systems mount indoors with included plates and adhesive tape, with no hardwiring and no electrician. That is not a small footnote for anyone whose lease forbids drilling, and it shows up in the reviews as the reason for the purchase rather than a convenience.

I live in an apartment where I can't paint, so these lights were the perfect solution. The triangle design makes it feel like interactive wall art. I went with soft pastel scenes during the day and bright dynamic colors at night. Even when they're off, they look stylish.

Rohit, review of Nanoleaf Shapes published on nanoleaf.me

It's a great mounting tape which doesn't leave any marks on the wall and it won't damage the walls.

Milad Goudarzi, review published on nanoleaf.me

One owner has already run the harder version of that test, which is not taking the wall down but taking it with you:

Just allowed me to install my Elements panels in my new apartment! Very easy to setup.

Olivia Bibrac, review of Nanoleaf Elements published on nanoleaf.me

The record so far

The company was founded by three University of Toronto engineering students and now runs five offices, in Toronto, Shenzhen, Paris, Hong Kong and the Philippines. The first of its published design principles is a question rather than a feature: start with why.

How to start without over buying

The mistake is to buy the wall you want to end with. The system is built to make that unnecessary, and buying it all at once removes the only real advantage you were paying for.

Start with the smallest kit that lights the wall

A five panel Shapes hexagon starter kit is $107.99 and includes the controller and the power supply. Nine bars of Lines at 60 degrees is $119.99. A seven panel Elements kit is $179.99. Every one of them is a complete, working wall.

Add in threes, not in tens

Expansion packs are priced for exactly this: three Shapes triangles are $44.99, three hexagons are $49.99, three Lines bars are $29.99, three Elements panels are $62.99. Single panels are sold on their own too, from $14.99 for a Mini Triangle. You will discover the shape you want by living with the one you have.

Buy one spare pack of tape with the kit

$9.99, 25 pieces. It is the cheapest line on the order and the one that decides whether the wall is a decision or a draft.