This $149 digital candle uses AI to accurately simulate a flickering flame

After engineering a flexible version of Tetris that could be wrapped around a magazine, Kevin Bates’ latest creation is a digital candle that uses a custom AI model to accurately simulate the appearance of a flickering flame across a grid of LEDs. It’s a far cry from the types of devices Bates is typically known for, including the Arduboy, but paying $79 for a credit card-sized handheld that can play hundreds of games is an easier sell than a $149 digital candle that doesn’t quite provide the same ambiance as the real thing, even if it’s much safer.

At the top of the 10-inch tall Digital Candle, which is available now with a black or white circuitboard, you’ll find 144 amber-colored LEDs arranged in a 9 by 16 grid with adjustable brightness. On the other end is a USB-C port for supplying power (a rechargeable battery isn’t included) and an Espressif ESP32-S3 chip that runs an AI model with a tiny neural network trained on footage of a real flickering candle.

The flame simulation never repeats and is unique to each candle since it’s being generated on the fly at all times. It’s not a pre-programmed animation set to loop so the results look very convincing, or as convincing as they can be on a low-res grid of LEDs. The Digital Candle is also open source so you can repurpose it as a clock, a notification screen, or run other simulations like Conway’s Game of Life. That could potentially make its $149 price a little easier to justify if you like to tinker.