# AI-powered digital candle simulates flickering flame on 144 LEDs

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/this-149-digital-candle-uses-ai-to-accurately-simulate-a-flickering-flame/
- Published: 2026-10-29T13:37:56+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-29T13:53:33+00:00
- Original publisher: The Verge
- Original article: https://www.theverge.com/tech/1022113/kevin-bates-arduboy-digital-candle-ai-simulate-flame
- Topics: AI, Technology

## Key points

- Kevin Bates’ digital candle simulates a flickering flame with AI.
- It costs $149 and uses 144 amber LEDs.
- Open-source software allows other uses, including a clock.

## Summary

Kevin Bates has released a $149 digital candle that uses an AI model to create a continuously changing flickering flame on a grid of LEDs. It offers a safer alternative to a real candle, though its price and limited ability to reproduce real candlelight may make it a harder sell than Bates’ gaming devices.

The 10-inch device has 144 amber LEDs arranged in a 9-by-16 grid, with adjustable brightness, and runs on an ESP32-S3 chip powered through USB-C; it has no rechargeable battery. Its small neural network was trained on footage of a real candle, generating a flame simulation on the fly that does not repeat. The candle is open source and can also be repurposed for functions such as a clock, notification display or Conway’s Game of Life.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.