LED candles are very common these days. It's easy to see the attraction -- there's no fire danger and they never need to be replaced (just batteries). But there's such a wide variation in price and quality that it's hard to know what to purchase. Some store-bought candles flicker very realistically, others just seem to blink. Some use plain white LEDs, some look like real flames. And there's no way to know how good a candle will look without buying it.

Thankfully, with Adafruit's Gemma microcontroller and an RGB LED pixel, making your own LED candle only takes a couple of minutes. Because the LED can create any color and the Gemma can control the flickering very precisely, it will look better than any store-bought candle ever could. Because the parts are so cheap, it will cost much less too!

This guide was written for the Gemma v2 board, but can be done with either the v2 or Gemma M0. We recommend the Gemma M0 as it is easier to use and is more compatible with modern computers!

Before you get started, follow the Gemma M0 guide or the Classic Introducing GEMMA guide

This guide was first published on Nov 04, 2015. It was last updated on Oct 29, 2017.

This page (Overview) was last updated on Oct 29, 2017.

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