Thursday, March 21, 2019
Guy Spends Three Years Making an Ultra-Realistic LED Candle That Even Puffs Smoke When Blown Out
gizmodo.com: Candle technology hasn’t changed much in thousands of years—you add fire to a wax-soaked wick, and it provides light for hours. It’s simple, it’s effective, and it doesn’t need an upgrade. So of course someone on the internet spent three years redesigning the candle from the ground up with digital guts—while managing to preserve its old-school usability.
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While it may seem minuscule, putting candles on stage is way more complicated than the average person may think. To start, someone may propose to just put a real candle on stage. While this would be the easiest thing to do, it is a huge process in most states. In most states, in order to put any fire on stage, you are required to have a fire marshal at every rehearsal and performance. You may also be required to have people on fire watch, ready with fire extinguishers, on either side of the stage. This can cost a huge amount of money, as you are often paying for three people to be there for every rehearsal and show. This brings people to want to use fake candles. Currently, most fake candles aren't very good, as they are often just single LEDs that flicker every so often. This new candle seems like a great alternative as it allows you to look like you are actually lighting it and blowing it out.
This is a really cool new invention, but I wish it didn't require a match. The whole point of using fake candles is because using a naked open flame is usually not allowed in our spaces. I assume this is easier to get past a fire marshal than a regular candle that burns for hours and can easily be forgotten about, but this invention still requires contacting a fire marshal for permission for an open flame. Maybe I'm wrong and matches are not considered a hazard but I am pretty positive it is not allowed without approval and at that point I might as well just ask if a real candle is okay. I guess this would be a nice alternative to trying to light a candle that has burned deeply enough that relighting it is like putting your hand in a pringles can, but I don't think this version is useful for theater. It is really interesting no doubt, but I feel like this could be tweaked so that the match is not even necessary. Besides, what sets this candle apart from other LED candles is the smoke aspect, so I think making it so that a match is not the trigger but rather it is something like the press of a button would be a lot more useful in our industry.
This is really cool. My first thought with this is that it would be a really cool prop, but I think in most situations where you wouldn’t be okay with a candle onstage you wouldn’t want an actual match either. Then again, I could believe there could be a situation where you do want the candle lit onstage and are willing to briefly have an open flame for the sake of the match, but don’t want to have a candle on fire for the whole scene/ act/ show. The smoke when you blow out the candle would be very cool in a production, especially in a smaller theater. I think it would be interesting if someone could make a realistic match to go with this candle. Obviously that would be much more difficult since the flame on a match is fully seen and there is no place to hide electronics, but I feel like we will eventually have the technology to make a convincing flameless match. That being said, I think he could sell these as props if there were a hidden switch to turn it on and you blow it to turn it off.
Wow. I mean yes this is overkill but I think Keith just proved that there’s no limits to what you can create. I think Keith’s candle has a very applicable use in theater, as it eliminates the need for fire watchers and fire marshals, therefore saving a bunch of money and resources. There is also the fact the fake candles that are currently available on the market are horrible at imitating a flickering light. The only real issue I see with Keith’s candle would be price. I can’t imagine that something so detailed and well made will come cheap. Even now, good fake candles can cost over twenty dollars per candle. For any show that’s not commercial or Broadway, the idea of spending so much on a candle is nearly impossible. I also think it would be even more useful if the candles could be controlled not only by a match flame, but by Bluetooth or by a light board, as sometimes there’s not always someone available to “blow out” the candle.
When I first opened the article and saw the gif of the candle being lit and then blown out, I actually thought I was looking at a real candle that the article put in to show what one looks like. I believed that stretch of an idea before believing how incredibly realistic his led candle could be. I’ve seen many fake led candles before, never had I thought that a more realistic one could be made. It’s amazing to me how something artificial could mimic something more natural (in the way it moves and etc..), even with details with how the light pulsates when the candle is first lit. I can definitely see this as something useful, especially on stage. This article also reminded me how useful 3d printing is, even though it was a smallish part of the candle, the 3d printer has really helped independant creator be able to do something like this, a project on the side.
This is an interesting concept, and something that I had never considered even as a possibility. The process for making and reproducing these candles seems like it would be almost more expensive than it is worth. I understand that a lot of times, it is difficult to have real candles on stage, but I think that it would be okay to have fake candles prelit, than to have these wild fake candles. I think that these would only be useful in very, very, very niche cases, and even then, only marginally useful. Due to the constraints of theatre, and having fire on stage. Also can I say that I hate how this article ends, comparing this candle to the “vape” of candles. I think that this implies that vaping is less dangerous, while in reality it is just as addictive, albeit without the use of a match or a lighter.
This candle looks really great and like it would be super useful for theater. Whenever I have had to create a candle effect on stage, there has always been something lacking. I would just use stage fixtures to create as sort of flickering effect but it was always obvious that the candles were fake. The issue with using effects like that and not having the timing exactly perfect is that it would be immediately obvious to the audience that the candles were fake. It may seem like a small detail but the smallest thing can pull an audience out of a story and make them laugh and realize that it’s all fake. I hope that this technology makes its way over into theater because it will help to make every show a little more realistic, in turn making the experience a little more enjoyable for the audience and take some pressure off the designers.
Seeing theatrical related innovations to common objects that are, traditionally, difficult to put on stage is always really interesting. In this case, the candle is difficult to have on stage due to the fire element. I really liked reading this article at this point in my life because I was recently opened up to the world of Arduino. Having been introduced to that world, I have a much greater appreciation for people who have the necessary skills to effectively program an Arduino. In this case, a light flicker is simple enough but yet still complex to try and get it to mimic an organic action. There are plenty of fake candles on the market, but none that I have seen, that look quite this good. This candles ability to recreate “smoke” is one that I have never seen before. This is one of the cases where a prop master never receives the credit they deserve for creating a prop that seems so real that an audience can not tell the difference.
This is insane. I truly blows my mind when I read or hear about things like this because I never understand how someone can come up with an idea like this but also the dedication is took to create this fake but real candle. Normally, when people try to invent something, they try to come up with a completely new and never before seen concept. I find it interesting and also challenging that Keith tried to reinvent something that looks so concreted and simple. I would’ve never imagined trying to reinvent a candle because too seems like something that did need reinventing. I think it's a courageous task to take on and the result were very surprising. After three years of developing this candle, he was able to create the most complex candle that seemed exactly the same as the original. He had a clear goal and although the path was long, it was complete and working and something that has never been seen before.
This seems amazing in concept, but it really isn’t as amazing as I had hoped. In general, I have always had issues with having real fire on stage so I thought this would be a great solution to my constant issue (that I know MANY people deal with) but you still need fire to light this fake candle. This literally could not be that helpful on stage, since you would still need permission for an open flame. However, Keith’s candle could be potentially useful if the assistant stage manager could run outside, light it, and then come back into the theatre or something like that to get around the rule. In general, this is a much safer option than a normal candle and looks better than literally all other existing fake candles. That being said, it would just be so much better if it didn’t need an actual open flame to work.
Somebody has way to much time on their hands. Way to much! That being said this is very fascinating. My knowledge of artificial candles comes primarily from the Haunt industry. I have seen many different types of quality on them, especially with the proximity, but my favorite candle effect I have ever seen is, not surprisingly, the most simple. It is meant to be put in a show scene where people are walking by at a fairly regular pace. All it is is a small vaporizer inside the hollow candle, a tube of water, and a led buried in hot glue to dim the flicker, and it creates the most amazing effect of a candle that has just been blown out, it is really astounding. No sensors, no computer boards, no electric shock, just simple ingenuity. Yes this one is cool, but when would one ever use it, except of course, on stage.
A lot of people have pointed out that you still need a match to light this candle, and that that is just as prohibitive as a real candle from a theatre standpoint. I think that somewhat misses the point though; the ‘lit by match’ feature is just that: a feature, not a requirement. Every other part of the candle is well engineered for theatre, but because it was created as a hobby and not with theatre in mind, he chose to light it with a real match. A recreation of this could use an RFID chip in a fake lighter or even use the Arduino to receive midi, whether through a hidden cable or wirelessly, allowing it to be lit on cue. It would still be difficult to do if you want the character to light a candle with a match, but with a lighter or for spooky candle effects, I think people are writing this off too soon.
I love reading articles like this and seeing people’s ingenuity come to life. The provided video of the candle in action was impressively realistic, and the mentioning that he did the programming in Arduino made it all the more impressive. I’ve seen Arduino in action a lot over the past few weeks while working on Rube, and most of our problems stem from troubleshooting and recalibrating our comparatively simple electrical components. The fact that this person was able to create such an impressively realistic candle effect was very very cool. I do agree with the other commenters that needing to use a lit match to trigger the effect would somewhat defeat the purpose of using it onstage, but I also do think that the programming could be worked with in such a way as to be triggered by something less dangerous, and then it could have the potential to fit our needs perfectly.
Like some of the other people have mentioned, the thing that threw me off a bit was the fact that it needed a match to set it off. Generally the point of having fake candles is that you wouldn’t need to have any fire present in the first place, but I assume that because it’s an aesthetic thing to help pull off the look, it wouldn’t be impossible to get it to ‘light’ with something else. But regardless of that, what he made is pretty incredible. It’s the extra details like the flickering and the little puff of smoke that really bring the object to life. I think that using a prop like this candle could be really effective onstage to make the stage environment appear more realistic, though it could run into problems if the audience if close of viewing it from above, because you could then clearly tell that there isn’t actually any flames in there. Overall, props to this guy for having the ingenuity to come up with something like this.
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