Flameless Candles

Anyone know of any zwave/zigbee or other type of SmartThings controllable flameless candles?

There are lots of them with remotes but I haven’t seen any ‘smart’ versions.

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No I haven’t heard of any of these yet. If you did, I would expect them to be $40 to $50 a pop due to the radios inside. If you can hide the wiring, I would say just build your own control with an arduino shield or Spark.io.

If they are IR, could you use a zwave IR blaster? I need to go back through the board to see if anyone has one working yet. Of course, that would only work local to the room with the blaster.

I haven’t had any luck finding them. I guess they would be too expensive for someone to manufacture them so no one does.

I haven’t seen any that are IR but that wouldn’t really work for what I was thinking of anyway.

Any update on this. My wife is requesting candles controllable by Smartthings.

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Hi @prettylucky, I use the presence sensor from SmartThings to activate several no smart things, the presence sensor that comes with the kit does not works fine to use it like presence device, but it is very small and works with 3v, many devices uses 3v like candles, if your candle have a digital button, you can use this method, the sensor have a little speaker to location, I use that call to trigger other things like my spray aroma, you can use the device battery and check the level. If you have some presence sensor without use them, you can try

I have IR - controllable flameless candles which work with my harmony remote, and then there is a SmartThings/harmony integration so you can do it that way. :sunglasses:

What candles are you using? I’m interested in some.

I have at least three different kinds. One was a very inexpensive set of tea candles that was on a prime special one day and just happens to have an IR remote. I don’t remember what brand those were.

I have one of the expensive Luminara cinnamon candles that someone gave me as a gift. This is the most realistic looking one.

https://www.amazon.com/Luminara-Flameless-Candle-Cinnamon-Scented/dp/B00LX4XSME/

And I have a few of the frostfire Mooncandles. These are less than half the cost of the luminara, but they definitely don’t look as realistic. They work fine, they just look more like flashlights to me. So these are actually the ones that I’m least happy with.

https://www.amazon.com/Frostfire-Mooncandles-Weatherproof-Outdoor-Candles/dp/B00B1BREC4/

Northern international, which are the ones that Costco sells, are also supposed to work with the harmony, but I haven’t tried them.

https://www.amazon.com/Rustic-Finish-Flameless-Feature-Control/dp/B01A74L714/

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Did anyone figure out an electric candle option here? I’m looking to trigger electric candles for ambiance, and running into dead ends. What I’ve done so far is use [this](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001DHQXX2/ref=twister_B00RUAVD72?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1) candle warmer in conjunction with smarthings outlets to automatically turn real candles on and off. Now, I’m looking for the candle / ambiance part.

Any ideas?

Hey JDRoberts- I’m wondering if you’re able to use the remote and trigger events or: I come home and the candles are on? Does the remote need to be in the same room as the candles or will it work house wide? Do I physically need to press a button on the remote to trigger the candles? Sorry so many questions, I’m new to this and debating investing another $15 per candle I have (over 15 of them) for zigbee buttons soldered into the candles or investing in the harmony remote (used). Any advice or thoughts you have to share I’d love to hear.

Type of remote

Some of these candles have Bluetooth remotes and some of them have IR remote. Bluetooth signals can travel through walls and IR signals cannot. Harmony does both, so you have to start by looking at the original remote for the candles to figure out which it’s using.

If it’s a Bluetooth remote, then you may not need the harmony hub to be in the same room with the candles, you just have to try and see.

If it’s an IR remote, then either the harmony hub has to be in the same room as the candles or you have to get an “IR extender” or “IR repeater” ( usually the same thing, just different manufacturers use different names, Although some more use “extender” for the ones that have cables and “repeater” for the ones that don’t).

There are two types of these. One uses a long cable, anywhere from 4 feet to about 20 feet and connects to the harmony hub, Or has a small receiver at one end of the cable that you put near the harmony hub. These are the least expensive and most reliable but you’re limited by the length of the cable and you will have to figure out Aesthetically how you want to run it to the next room.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014EDRJB6/ref=psdc_11039361_t1_B06XVB61JY?th=1

The other kind is called “wireless.“ This will have two separate devices. One will go in the room with the harmony hub and the other will go in the room with the candles. This can often be up to 200 feet apart, but may not work is reliably as the ones that are physically cabled to the hub. Also, the good ones can be quite expensive, around $50. They work for some people, not for others. I’m going to link to one just as an example of one of the better Quality ones, but there are a lot of different brands so shop around.

https://www.amazon.com/SIIG-CE-RC0014-S1-Compact-Wireless-Extender/dp/B072PY9H5Y/

*Triggering the Harmony Activity

Once you have the devices in place So that you can choose a harmony activity either from the handheld remote or from the harmony app and it will turn the candles on or off, you can then trigger that activity any way that smartthings can. So it could be based on a motion sensor, on you arriving home, on a time of day, on a command to echo or Google home, Whatever you like. It’s just another harmony activity as far smartthings is concerned. :sunglasses:

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/205653834-Logitech-Harmony-Home-Hub

So:

  1. Select a candle which can be controlled from the Logitech Harmony hub.

  2. If needed, add additional devices so that you can control the candles in a different room.

  3. Create the harmony activities that you want to turn the candles on using the harmony app.

  4. Now Use the harmony/smartthings integration To set up triggers for Those harmony activities so that the activities are started when you want them started.

I hope that answers the question. :candle::sunglasses:

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JDRoberts - do you know if there is anything special that needs to be done with the IR repeaters (wireless puck type - the ones I have are Sewell Direct Blastir) to connect them to the Harmony Hub so they repeat the signal in different rooms? Looks like the receiver just needs to be in the vicinity of the Harmony Hub and the Emitter in whatever room you need it in. Just can’t seem to get the flameless candles (Luminara) in the other room to turn on, although they work fine if they are in the room with the Harmony Hub.

That’s almost always an issue between the harmony and the transmitter. Do you have any other devices you can test it on to see if it’s working?

ok, moved the DVD player to the other room with the emitter - the activity includes devices in the room with the Harmony hub. When I activate the activity, the devices in the room with the hub turn on, but the DVD (now in the other room with the emitter puck) does not turn on.

Thanks man for your advise I’ve been trying to figure out something like this because my daughter has ton of led candles and its just a pain to turn them all on or off one by one. Although if a company did make Zwave tea lights they would make a killing. I was hoping that I was the only one that thought it up so I could invent it but looks like the idea is already floating around out there. I was gonna call them “Zea Lights” lol. But Kudos again sir for this alternate solution, it is pretty slick.

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Id check to see if the blaster is in line of sight with the harmony hub and the other blaster is in line of sight of the other device. Are there any lights on the blasters?

yes, lights are on for both the receiver and emitter when I press the activity button on the Harmony remote.

2020 Update:

Lexi is a brand of flameless candles which is now added smartthings integration through the new V3 app. Expensive, but lots of features.

.
https://lexidevices.com/technology/

Might of over engineered this but went with these candles.

(1) Built a virtual switch in ST
(2) Built an IR device in my living room Harmony hub using the learn code functions on the remote
(3) Built a WebCore piston to push against the maddox Harmony API running on a Pi
(4) Gave access to the virtual switch to my Amazon Echos
(5) Assigned a button on my Harmony Remote to the virtual switch

== family is happy

I did not use Kuku Harmony but you could build a device from that instead of the virtual switch.

Here is the piston snapshot (used the non-anonymous to show the full URL local path):

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