This video undertakes a detailed comparison and teardown of various LED candles sourced from Lidl and AliExpress, focusing on the evolution of their flickering effects and underlying circuitry. The speaker highlights a significant improvement from older, "hideously flickery" designs to newer ones featuring a "subtle undulating" glow that creates a more realistic illusion of a wavering flame. Teardowns reveal that simpler AliExpress candles utilize self-flickering LEDs with direct battery connection, while a more sophisticated Lidl model incorporates a microcontroller, quartz crystal, and timer functionality to control a standard LED. The video also touches on battery life, flame color realism, and the challenge of finding the desirable subtle-flickering LEDs in the market.
Summarizing the LED Candle Comparison: From Jittery to Subtle Flickers
0:00 Evolution of Flickering: The video compares older, "hideously flickery" LED candles with newer types that produce a "subtle undulating" effect, creating a more convincing illusion of a wavering flame.
1:10 Lidl's Unexpected Timer: Lidl candles feature a hidden timer function (6 hours on, 18 hours off) activated by a click-on switch, indicating the presence of more complex circuitry beyond just an LED.
1:26 Sourcing Challenges & Color Accuracy: The speaker notes difficulty finding the newer "gentle flicker" LEDs on AliExpress. They also compare flame colors, preferring the "golden white" of AliExpress candles over Lidl's "creamy" or "greeny white" for realism.
2:20 Battery Capacity: AliExpress candles typically use AA cells, offering three times the capacity of the AAA cells found in the Lidl candles, suggesting longer runtimes for the former.
4:30 Simplicity of AliExpress Design: Teardowns confirm that the simpler AliExpress candles use self-flickering LEDs, with 3V applied directly from the batteries, requiring minimal additional components.
7:25 Lidl's Advanced Internal Circuitry: The Lidl wax candle contains a circuit board with a microcontroller (likely Paduk type), a quartz crystal (32.768 kHz), and an ordinary LED (not self-flickering), along with provisions for an unused infrared receiver.
9:40 Direct LED Drive in Lidl: The Lidl candle's microcontroller directly drives the standard white LED without a series resistor, optimizing for maximum intensity by leveraging the LED's forward voltage and the pin's voltage drop to control current.
12:20 Personal Preference & Availability: The subtle undulating glow is preferred over harsh flickering. Despite Lidl's more complex and engineered design, the speaker personally favors the simpler AliExpress candle with AA batteries for its combination of longer runtime and realistic color. AliExpress candles are generally more widely available.