A little romantic candlelight is especially nice on dull autumn and winter days. With this smart solar candle hack, it’s easy at the push of a button.

Candlelight in the smart home: Modify LED candles and control them via smartphone In the beginning there was the LED candle Power supply One project – three results Part 1: Equip the LED candle with a Li-Po battery Part 2: LED candle via ZigBee Connect module to smart home Part 3: A solar charging station for the candle Article in Make Magazine 6 / 2020 read As a smart home enthusiast, I have set up a series of “scenes” in my self-built control center with which I can control lights, audio players, blinds and shutters as desired – depending on the mood. A scene was created for relaxed evenings that dims my lights and plays my favorite music. How nice it would be if one or two candles were lit – from the sofa, with the smartphone at the push of a button.

In the beginning there was the LED candle So I had the idea to modify the cheap LED candles of a well-known furniture chain so that I can control them remotely. The only problem: the power supply. Control via WLAN was out of the question, because the popular ESP 8266 -Microcontrollers need with their good and happy 97 mA much more current than a compact battery could deliver in the long run. Deep-sleep modes were also dropped early, as the candles could not have been switched on with a smartphone when the WLAN module was in power-saving mode.

So I started the “Smart Candle “thoughtfully shelved until I stumbled across an old Make online article during the Corona period. There it was explained how the authors had managed to remove the ZigBee module from an IKEA Trådfri lamp in order to reuse it in a separate, simple LED circuit. My interest was piqued.

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Log in and read Register now and read the article immediately More information about heise + Candlelight in the smart home: Modify LED candles and control them via smartphone In the beginning there was the LED candle Power supply One project – three results Part 1: Equip the LED candle with a Li-Po battery Part 2: LED candle via ZigBee Connect module to smart home Part 3: A solar charging station for the candle Article in Make Magazine 6 / 2020 read