The privacy friendly smart home
Do we have to choose between privacy and convenience?
Candle is a privacy focused smart home demonstrator. Our prototypes prove it's technically possible to build a privacy respecting smart home while maintaining convenience.
Candle is being developed by a collective of designers, artists and privacy experts from Amsterdam. While the main goal is raising awareness, we're also interested in working with partners to bring these innovations to market.
The project is funded by the Dutch Fund for the Creative Industries, and has received EU funding through the Sherpa research program for ethical AI.
Privacy by Design
Candle is "cloudless": your data never leaves your home.
Respectful
Family and friends shouldn't feel watched or profiled in your home. That's why some of the devices can generate fake data.
Open Source
To make devices more transparent and trustworthy, all the source code is freely available.
Easy to use
Candle supports local voice control.
More secure
Because Candle devices do not use WiFi to communicate and do not connect to the internet by default, they are more difficult to hack.
DIY friendly
You can re-create Candle by buying and assembling the parts yourself. Our guides make it easy to do - no soldering or programming is required.
Candle was launched at Dutch Design Week 2019
But you can also see it at:
Amsterdam exhibit
From 1 - 27 November, Candle is being exhibited at Spring House. It is located next to Amsterdam's central train station.
Build it yourself
The central controller
Candle's central hub stores your data and allows you to create and manage all the connected sensors and switches. We like hiding it inside a candle.
Electricity use sensor
See how much electricity your home uses right now, per hour, and per day.
Temperature, humidity and barometer sensor
The barometer can predict the weather on the spot - no need to connect to a cloud service provider to get this information.
Smart lock
Open the door with your voice, the app, or even by sending a password in an SMS. For extra security you can choose which phone numbers may do this.
Dust sensor
You can turn off the transmission of data at any time, or even tell the sensor to generate fake data for a while.
Signal hub
Detect and replay wireless signals. This touch-screen device can copy wireless remote controls, or learn to detect signals from cheap security sensors.
Plant health sensor
One device can monitor the moisture level of up to five plants simultaneously, and tell you which ones are thirsty. You could trigger automatic irrigation if you wanted to.
..and many more.
“Our goal is to accelerate the industry towards privacy friendly products by showing innovative examples of what these products could look like.”
— Tijmen Schep
Privacy Designer
Are you a producer of smart devices?
We believe privacy is an opportunity. Learn more about our code, our principles or our workshops.
Shared principles
We are part of a larger movement that is bringing ethics and technology closer together again.
Our principles