LIFX has long been one of the heavyweights in the smart lighting space, particularly known for pushing the boundaries of color accuracy and brightness. While they have dominated the bulb, downlight, and light strip categories for years, their latest launch marks an exciting first for the brand. Introducing LIFX Luna, the company’s first dedicated smart lamp.

Introduced at CES, LIFX Luna is designed to be a compact, multifunctional light that can conveniently sit on a table, stand on a shelf, or mount on the wall to transform a space. I’ve spent some time with it in my home setup, and it’s safe to say that this is one of the most visually impressive and well thought out lights LIFX has produced to date.

Design and Hardware

Right out of the box, the first thing that strikes you about the LIFX Luna is how beautiful it is. It features a sleek, modern aesthetic that feels incredibly premium to the touch, thanks to the high-quality materials used in its construction.

Measuring 205mm x 130mm x 56mm, it is a great size; Substantial enough to make a visual statement on a shelf or desk, but compact enough not to clutter your space. While it looks beautiful simply as a free-standing lamp, LIFX also includes all the hardware needed for wall mounting (including 3M adhesive, screws, and a drywall anchor) in the box.

What makes the mounting system even better is the versatility: you can mount it vertically or in horizontal orientation, depending on your design. It is a clean and modern wall light that fits exactly into your space. The real magic of the design, however, lies in how it diffuses light. Unlike cheaper RGB lights, where you can easily spot the individual hot spots of the LEDs shining through the plastic, Luna behaves like a beautifully lit canvas.

It features individual uplighting control along with 31 addressable recessed lighting zones, powered by LIFX SuperColour LEDs. The result is an incredibly soft and uniform color spray. The combination is incredibly perfect, giving you a rich wash of light against the walls without any harsh, visible points of origin. This is one of the reasons I love and use my LIFX lights for so long.

Brightness and color performance

When it comes to performance, the LIFX Luna packs a serious punch. It produces up to 1000 lumens, which is roughly equivalent to a traditional 65W to 70W incandescent bulb. For a smart lamp of this size, 1000 lumens is remarkably bright. In fact, it’s so bright that it can easily light up an entire space on its own. We turned it on for the first time (and yes, I did it in the dark, when it was late at night), and I went blind. So bright!

Because it’s a LIFX product, color reproduction is exceptional, with an incredibly wide white spectrum ranging from a super-warm 1500K to a crisp, cool 9000K. Since we put it in our TV room, we didn’t want it to completely take over the TV and take attention away from the screen. Luckily, it fades beautifully and we ended up reducing it to 2% to give a perfect subtle ambient glow.

Simple setup and control

One of the best aspects of the LIFX Luna is its absolute simplicity. It’s literally just plug-and-play. If you want a premium light but don’t want to mess around with apps, accounts, or linking accounts, you don’t have to.

On the device itself, you’ll find nice, built-in rubber buttons that give you tactile control over the entire experience. Directly from the lamp, you can control power, adjust brightness, toggle between preloaded lighting effects, and toggle motion effects. It’s refreshing to see a smart product that remains fully functional even if the internet goes out or you just don’t feel like taking out your phone.

Smart Home Unlocking – LIFX and Matter App

If you want to go further, adding the LIFX Luna through the LIFX app unlocks a whole new layer of cool technology. The lamp is also fully Matter compatible, meaning it doesn’t require a dedicated proprietary hub to connect to its ecosystem. Pairing it directly with Google Home (or Apple Home and Alexa) through Matter is incredibly fast and painless. It’s as quick as opening any Matter-compatible app and scanning the QR code on the back of the Luna.

Once you add the light to the LIFX app, you can easily assign it to specific rooms to control it along with your existing smart devices. Even better, the Luna’s four physical buttons can be customized through the app. Using Matter or LIFX Cloud, you can configure the lamp buttons to control other smart devices in your home; a brilliant integration that effectively turns the lamp into a mini smart switch for your room.

The app also gives you access to a wide range of custom lighting effects, including the crowd-favorite music sync feature, which dynamically reacts to your surroundings.

Real-world experience and a shared LIFX quirk

In daily testing, the LIFX Luna has been a pleasure to use, although it shares a small legacy quirk common to all LIFX hardware.

When you activate a LIFX light through an external smart hub integration, such as turning it on or off via Google Home, an automation routine, or a smart switch, the light will default to activating its static color effect. If you want to use one of LIFX’s dynamic motion effects (such as a changing kaleidoscope or flickering fire), turn on the light first and then you can activate the effect. From there, you need to manually press the effect button on the physical Luna device or open the LIFX app and press “play” on your chosen effect. This basically means that the motion effect is not loaded through Google Home.

Because of this limitation in the LIFX ecosystem, I usually tend to go with a beautiful static RGB effect that looks great on its own without requiring motion.

Interestingly, this quirk worked perfectly for my specific location. Because we installed the LIFX Luna right next to the TV, we quickly realized that having a dynamic, moving light effect right in your peripheral vision while you were trying to watch a movie was incredibly distracting. Combined with keeping the brightness down to 1 or 2%, we were really happy to not have a motion effect on a light that is close to the TV. All the other lights in our TV room have static RGB effects and create a gorgeous, immersive ambient background without taking your eyes off the screen.

Conclusion

LIFX Luna is an exceptional entry into the smart lamp market. Retailing for $149.99 AUD, it offers a brilliant combination of premium hardware design, robust physical controls and cutting-edge intelligent Matter integration.

Whether you just want a stylish, premium table lamp that works right out of the box, or a highly integrated, horizontally or vertically mounted smart canvas that can control the rest of your home, LIFX Luna delivers on all fronts. If you’re looking to improve the ambient lighting in your home, this is an absolute winner.