Review: Let There Be Light

An ambient glow - these candles are from 3 to around 6 inches high

What do the cold, dark nights need now we're heading towards the shortest day? Somewhere warm to curl up, a good book and hot chocolate are high on my list, as well as the reassuring flicker of candlelight.

But what if - like us - you have curious pets (or children) hell bent on exploring everything happening in their world? We've had a couple of near misses with toppling candles and flying fur, which means we've put ours away for the foreseeable future :(

So I recently opted to try out a set of remote control candles courtesy of ParamountZone via Fuel My Blog.

My first surprise was they're actually made of wax, hollowed out and with a small light about the size of a small candle flame in the bottom. They come with a small remote control to switch them on/off plus options to swap between steady and flickering flames; a dimmer switch (2 settings - dim and dimmer); plus a 4 or 8 hour timer.

My second surprise was the candles don't come with the batteries they require (though the remote does), so NAH was dispatched to fetch me the 6xAAA batteries I needed to test them all out. As you can see the effect is quite realistic. The candles flicker gently, though I'm unsure whether someone with epilepsy would cope with the effect.

The remote has a range of around 5 metres, though at longer distances it didn't always work with all of the candles. Sometimes 2-3 clicks were needed to get all the candles to the setting required - it could be one of the candles was blocking the reception of another. If the remote gets lost, then there's all the switches you need in the base of each candle.

Overall verdict: They're more realistic and better than I thought they'd be. They provide a safe solution for replacing candlelight, but I've decided that's not enough. I prefer the way a candle's flame grows and diminishes, plus the smell you get when you finally extinguish the light.

Comments

  1. petoskystone11 November 2012 at 14:25

    Grandchild #3 is known for 'harvesting' batteries from one object to keep her toys going. She's quite adept at prying them out, so, perhaps, it's safer to use actual candles in this household ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. VP11 November 2012 at 16:06

    Petoskystone - I had to promise faithfully to give NAH all his batteries back ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cally Smart13 November 2012 at 14:50

    Sounds similar to the kind of thing we use on the stage. However we have banned battery-operated doodahs in this house. Nothing beats the real thing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. VP14 November 2012 at 11:08

    Hi Cally - I agree :)

    ReplyDelete

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