They're the sort of thing it's not really possible to show off in a photo or even video. What really gets you (or at least gets me) is seeing these things out of the corner of your eye, flickering, just like flames flicker....
This was a pretty uncertain research project. We didn't know if we'd be able to make really convincing flameless flames. The day I knew we'd got it was the day I brought a prototype home to tune and A/B test against a real candle. I went upstairs to put the kid to bed, then came downstairs and panicked because I thought I'd left the real candle burning. I hadn't! I got fooled by my own product. It was all downhill from there.
These guys are patented (somehow... the language is pretty impenetrable, and it's my own patent...) so I don't mind sharing a little of how it's done: there's an array of LEDs plus optically-active element, which shapes the light in a way that makes it look good. Nothing about this is too complicated (the optical surfaces aren't all that special, but are not trivial to prototype in your garage, at least if you've never done optics before), but there was a lot of R&D to settle in on what looks "right", and the final product has a lot of "premium" touches that really drove up the manufacturing cost. Hence the high final cost -- they really do cost a lot to make.
But they look awesome!
(And thanks Tim for your original article -- I definitely remember reading it during the early research phase!)
i went to a 'candle light concert' where they had a little asterisk at the bottom pointing out the candles were "flameless", they probably had several hundred LED candles lined up on each edge of the room as the main light source. it was pretty cool and im guessing they used those patents?
Hey, I got paid to do this a few years back! Here's the result: https://evietealight.com/
They're the sort of thing it's not really possible to show off in a photo or even video. What really gets you (or at least gets me) is seeing these things out of the corner of your eye, flickering, just like flames flicker....
This was a pretty uncertain research project. We didn't know if we'd be able to make really convincing flameless flames. The day I knew we'd got it was the day I brought a prototype home to tune and A/B test against a real candle. I went upstairs to put the kid to bed, then came downstairs and panicked because I thought I'd left the real candle burning. I hadn't! I got fooled by my own product. It was all downhill from there.
These guys are patented (somehow... the language is pretty impenetrable, and it's my own patent...) so I don't mind sharing a little of how it's done: there's an array of LEDs plus optically-active element, which shapes the light in a way that makes it look good. Nothing about this is too complicated (the optical surfaces aren't all that special, but are not trivial to prototype in your garage, at least if you've never done optics before), but there was a lot of R&D to settle in on what looks "right", and the final product has a lot of "premium" touches that really drove up the manufacturing cost. Hence the high final cost -- they really do cost a lot to make.
But they look awesome!
(And thanks Tim for your original article -- I definitely remember reading it during the early research phase!)