This clever idea is another “why didn’t I think of that?” moment.

I’m sure that pretty much everyone has a spare 9 volt battery or two sitting around. Usually, they’re left-over from changing the smoke detectors that started beeping at 3:00am really, not very many other devices around your typical home will use them.

Well, here’s your chance to put them to use. Maybe good use if combined with a nice bottle of wine and some company 😉

It appears that the inventor has combined a 9v battery snap with some white LEDs or small incandescent bulbs to create a novel electronic candle. The “candle” snaps right on top of the 9v battery, which acts as the base, and yields a simple, elegant design.

There does not appear to be a link or store where you can buy these, but if you want to contact the inventor, you can try richl(at)forpeople(dot)co(dot)uk. Of course, this would be a super simple project you could build yourself. I’d probably put a small brightness adjustment on them as they look to be pretty bright, at least when the battery is new.

I’d guess that if you used white LEDs, you’d want to add a yellow LED to make the color more “warm” since white LEDs tend to be pretty blue in color and that’s not what you expect from a candle. So, a battery snap (probably 50 cents from Radio Shack), a current limiting resistor, a couple LEDs, and some potting plastic and you’re in business!