Digital Candle Uses Trained AI Model to Flicker in Real Time, Priced at $149
Kevin Bates, who worked on the Arduboy handheld, developed Digital Candle, a 25.2 cm board with 144 amber LEDs arranged 9 by 16.
1 source 1h ago
Reporting from 1 source: GIGAZINE.
Why it matters
The selling point is not the candle: a 3,545-parameter model running locally on an ESP32-S3 shows AI inference moving into small, cheap, single-purpose hardware sold as open source, with the flame as the demonstration.
Key Facts
- Digital Candle was developed by Kevin Bates, who has worked on the Arduboy handheld game console.
- The board is about 25.2 cm tall and 2.8 cm wide, with 144 amber LEDs in a 9 by 16 grid.
- The AI model uses a convolutional decoder with 3545 parameters and updates the flame at 30 frames per second.
- Digital Candle is priced at $149 and sold in Arduboy's official online shop.
- The device runs on an Espressif ESP32-S3 and is powered via USB Type-C at 5V with no built-in battery.
A small neural network trained on footage of real candle flames generates the flicker live at 30 frames per second, rather than looping a prepared animation. The model runs on an Espressif ESP32-S3 and is sold for $149 through Arduboy's online shop.
Digital Candle is a board about 2.8 cm wide, powered over USB Type-C at 5V, with no rechargeable battery inside; a dock is included but external power is required while it runs. The trained model uses a convolutional decoder and carries 3,545 parameters, holding the flame's behavior in 8 variables that drive the LED lighting patterns. Because the pattern is generated rather than played back, each unit produces a different flicker.
Kevin Bates publishes the development software on GitHub, and the individually addressable LEDs let the board double as a clock or notification display, or a Game of Life screen. The board comes in black and white, and a browser demo shows the flame without a purchase.
Written with AI by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited. See our editorial policy.
Add Yomimono as a preferred source on Google