$149 Digital Candle Uses AI to Simulate a Flickering Flame

Kevin Bates, known for creating the Arduboy and a flexible version of Tetris, has made a digital candle that uses a custom AI model to simulate a flickering flame. The Digital Candle costs $149.

The 10-inch-tall device has 144 amber LEDs arranged in a 9-by-16 grid, with adjustable brightness. An Espressif ESP32-S3 chip runs a tiny neural network trained on footage of a real flickering candle. The flame is generated continuously, so the simulation does not repeat. It is not a pre-programmed animation loop.

The candle draws power through USB-C and does not include a rechargeable battery. It is available with a black or white circuitboard. The device is open source and can also be repurposed as a clock, a notification screen, or for simulations such as Conway’s Game of Life.

The source describes the LED grid’s low resolution as a limit on how convincing the flame looks. It also notes that Bates’s $79 Arduboy, a credit-card-sized handheld that can play hundreds of games, may be an easier purchase to justify than the $149 candle.