LaMetric SKY: modular hardware that works as one display
How we engineered a modular light where every panel has its own electronics and firmware, yet any shape on the wall maps itself with one phone scan and updates over the air as one product.
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Services
- Product Development
LaMetric SKY is a modular connected light: right-angled triangle panels, each with 64 individually lit zones, that people join into any shape on their wall, in 16.4 million colours. Joined along their diagonal edges, they also form clean squares and rectangles. Whatever shape they build, it behaves as one display, playing unified effects and showing information across every panel. Unveiled at CES 2019 and built by the same in-house team on the LaMetric platform.
Featured on CNET: Get a look at LaMetric’s gorgeous color-changing wall lights and LaMetric dazzles with multi-color LED wall panels at CES 2019.
At a glance
- Industry
- Consumer Electronics
- Services
- Product Development
Planning something similar? A senior engineer replies within one business day.
The challenges
A modular product multiplies every hard problem in connected hardware. Each panel is its own piece of electronics with its own firmware. People assemble the panels into shapes nobody can predict, yet the whole wall has to look and behave like a single display. And every panel has to stay up to date for years, not just the controller.
OTA for every panel
Over-the-air updates have to reach not only the controller but each individual panel in the assembled shape.
A mechanical system for any shape
A connection system that lets panels join corner to corner, side to side or half to half, so people can build any shape on the wall.
One picture across all panels
Whatever shape people build, effects and information have to play as one unified display, not as separate tiles.
Knowing where every panel is
Once the panels are on the wall, the product has to work out the exact layout of a shape it has never seen, without asking people to map it by hand.
Tight hardware budget
Run the controller, panel management, app integrations and over-the-air updates on just 128 MB of RAM and 128 MB of flash.
Our approach
Mechanical design: a connection system for right-angled triangle panels that lets people build any shape on the wall while every panel stays part of one system.
R&D highlights: an RS-485 protocol that drives real-time effects on up to 16 modules at lower BOM cost, and a patented mechanical coupling that keeps the image clear across modules.
Computer vision: during setup, the light zones on each panel show a unique colour code. People scan the wall once with their phone camera, and computer vision works out where every panel sits and how the shape fits together. With that map, one effect or message plays as a single picture across the whole wall, whatever shape people build.
OTA for a modular system: over-the-air releases update the controller and each panel, so every part of the shape runs the same software for years.
Experience: each panel is split into small triangular light zones, inspired by stained glass, so the wall works as art and as a pixel display: dozens of styles and effects such as seasons, clouds, lightning, sunrise and sunset, plus the time, notifications, metrics and custom messages. In business spaces it shows logos, branding and follower counts.
Built on the platform: SKY runs on the same LaMetric platform and companion app as LaMetric TIME. It lights up as soon as it is plugged in, with no phone needed, and is controlled from the phone, by voice through Google Assistant, or with the button on LaMetric TIME.
What it means for you: modular hardware, panel-level OTA and computer vision are problems we have already solved in our own product, and we bring that experience to yours.
The challenges
A modular product multiplies every hard problem in connected hardware. Each panel is its own piece of electronics with its own firmware. People assemble the panels into shapes nobody can predict, yet the whole wall has to look and behave like a single display. And every panel has to stay up to date for years, not just the controller.
OTA for every panel
Over-the-air updates have to reach not only the controller but each individual panel in the assembled shape.
A mechanical system for any shape
A connection system that lets panels join corner to corner, side to side or half to half, so people can build any shape on the wall.
One picture across all panels
Whatever shape people build, effects and information have to play as one unified display, not as separate tiles.
Knowing where every panel is
Once the panels are on the wall, the product has to work out the exact layout of a shape it has never seen, without asking people to map it by hand.
Tight hardware budget
Run the controller, panel management, app integrations and over-the-air updates on just 128 MB of RAM and 128 MB of flash.
Our approach
Mechanical design: a connection system for right-angled triangle panels that lets people build any shape on the wall while every panel stays part of one system.
R&D highlights: an RS-485 protocol that drives real-time effects on up to 16 modules at lower BOM cost, and a patented mechanical coupling that keeps the image clear across modules.
Computer vision: during setup, the light zones on each panel show a unique colour code. People scan the wall once with their phone camera, and computer vision works out where every panel sits and how the shape fits together. With that map, one effect or message plays as a single picture across the whole wall, whatever shape people build.
OTA for a modular system: over-the-air releases update the controller and each panel, so every part of the shape runs the same software for years.
Experience: each panel is split into small triangular light zones, inspired by stained glass, so the wall works as art and as a pixel display: dozens of styles and effects such as seasons, clouds, lightning, sunrise and sunset, plus the time, notifications, metrics and custom messages. In business spaces it shows logos, branding and follower counts.
Built on the platform: SKY runs on the same LaMetric platform and companion app as LaMetric TIME. It lights up as soon as it is plugged in, with no phone needed, and is controlled from the phone, by voice through Google Assistant, or with the button on LaMetric TIME.
What it means for you: modular hardware, panel-level OTA and computer vision are problems we have already solved in our own product, and we bring that experience to yours.
Our approach
What it means for you: modular hardware, panel-level OTA and computer vision are problems we have already solved in our own product, and we bring that experience to yours.
Mechanical design
A connection system for right-angled triangle panels that lets people build any shape on the wall while every panel stays part of one system.
R&D highlights
An RS-485 protocol that drives real-time effects on up to 16 modules at lower BOM cost, and a patented mechanical coupling that keeps the image clear across modules.
Computer vision
During setup, the light zones on each panel show a unique colour code. People scan the wall once with their phone camera, and computer vision works out where every panel sits and how the shape fits together. With that map, one effect or message plays as a single picture across the whole wall, whatever shape people build.
OTA for a modular system
Over-the-air releases update the controller and each panel, so every part of the shape runs the same software for years.
Experience
Each panel is split into 64 small triangular light zones, inspired by stained glass, so the wall works as art and as a pixel display: dozens of styles and effects such as seasons, clouds, lightning, sunrise and sunset, plus the time, notifications, metrics and custom messages. In business spaces it shows logos, branding and follower counts.
Built on the platform
SKY runs on the same LaMetric platform and companion app as LaMetric TIME, and syncs with it: TIME shows which SKY scene is running. It lights up as soon as it is plugged in, with no phone needed, and is controlled from the phone, by voice through Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, or with the button on LaMetric TIME.
Results
- Any assembled shape mapped with one phone-camera scan and shown as one display
- OTA updates for the controller and every panel
- Unveiled at CES 2019, ships to 20+ countries
The hard parts of modular hardware (panel-level OTA, self-mapping and an RS-485 protocol at lower BOM cost) are solved and proven in a product that ships to 20+ countries.
“The best-looking option to date.” CNET, CES 2019
See LaMetric SKY in action
Planning something similar?
Tell us where you are. A senior engineer replies within one business day.
Services used
One engineering team from concept to devices running in the field: prototypes, electronics and enclosure design, firmware and embedded Linux, certification, manufacturing and fleet operations under one roof.
Enclosures and mechanical parts designed together with the electronics, ready for prototypes, tooling and volume production.
Vision and AI that run on the device: camera pipelines, on-device inference and models you can update across the fleet. Start from our Industrial Vision Box platform instead of building the stack from zero.
Over-the-air updates that never brick a device: A/B partitions, signed images, rollback and staged rollouts.
iOS and Android apps that onboard, control and update devices, built together with the firmware and cloud.
Talk to an engineer, not a salesperson
Idea, prototype, production or a fleet in the field: tell us where you are. A senior engineer replies within one business day.
Your benefits:
- Senior embedded engineers
- Hardware, firmware and cloud
- From prototype to fleet
- Clear scope and next steps
- Direct technical answers
- No sales pitch
What happens next?
A free 30-minute call with a senior engineer
A short technical discovery
A proposal with scope, timeline and cost
