Hacker News Reader

Comment by yoloswagins | Hacker News Reader

While a smart phone candle doesn't solve the major issues facing humanity, it does help with prevent home fires.

In the US, there are about 1.240 million house fires a year[1], of which, 2,325 are caused by candles[2].

The candle will go out if it's knocked over, or if it's smothered[3].

While this is very expensive for a candle, it has the very real potential to prevent house fires. With time, the cost will fall, and we'll see less and less candle induced home fires.

[1] https://www.usfa.fema.gov/data/statistics/ [2] http://www.nfpa.org/public-education/by-topic/top-causes-of-... [3] http://www.cnet.com/products/ludela-smart-candle/preview/

View on HN

That "1.240 million" is all fires, including vehicles & outside fires. I freaked out a bit thinking 1% of all US homes catch fire every year.

It seems 31.7% of those were "residential" fires (393000).

From https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v17i2.pdf:

From 2012 to 2014, fire departments responded to an estimated 243,800 fires in one- and two-family residences each year across the nation. These fires resulted in an annual average of 2,110 deaths, 7,950 injuries, and 5.4 billion dollars in property loss.

So... 0.2% of the fires? That's not a great argument.

"More than half (58%) of home candle fires occurred when some form of combustible material was left or came too close to the candle."

I don't see how Ludela can solve this, so that leaves <1000.

In fact, this kind of large candles probably don't set much on fire, it's the little ones that people put on Christmas trees and such that are really dangerous.

Wait, who is dumb enough to put a real candle on a Christmas tree?!

Oh, it's traditional in many European countries, and so it has been imported into the US. I still have a kind of clip-on holder inherited from my grandparents, like this: http://cdn.notonthehighstreet.com/system/product_images/imag...

I only use LEDs, of course.

It seems to me that remote ignition is likely to cause fires.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com