A look inside a Luminara waterproof outdoor LED candle.04:33

Luminara candles are electronic candles that use a pulsed coil to move a plastic flame randomly in front of an LED. The result is a surprisingly realistic flame effect.
Up to now I’ve avoided buying an actual Luminara candle because they are quite expensive, but having bought the cheaper copies (about a third of the price) I was finally tempted to buy one purely to take to bits to compare to the cheaper copies.
I got a new version which is actually designed for outdoor use and as you’ll see from the video, the waterproofing is really quite impressive.
Now I’ve got a real Luminara candle I can appreciate all the little details that make it better than the copies. It’s a much more refined design with a well chosen LED colour and the coil being pulsed with just enough current to get good flame movement without clacking noisily off the side of the case like the Premier copy does.
Just out of interest I put a meter across the coil leads and it appears to be pulsed with a series of 15 equally spaced pulses followed by a short pause and then repeating. I’d thought the pulsing was going to be more random, but I guess the position of the magnet at each pulse gives quite a complex randomisation pattern.
This candle uses two D size cells and claims an operating time of 500 hours on a fresh set of alkaline cells. If the built in timer is used (5 hours on 19 off per 24 hour cycle) then theoretically the candle will run for three months on a set of cells.