apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Oh, sure, TEASE us with a description of nightime "candle-lit" shower romps, but SHOW us a lovely chaste table shot. Fine. Be that way. ;)

Anyone know where to get little lights that drop in your drink, and illuminate only when wet? Great for those dark country nights . . .

so does it flicker like a candle or is it just a normal filiment bulb in there? all this talk and nothing about whether it resembles a candle. the PR says:

- they’re clean and odorless; the soot released from candles is similar to that of diesel fuel (!)

what the fuck? of course a bulb is clean and odorless. what releases soot? charge from the batteries? this shit makes no sense.

My experience with these wasn't so good. The candelas look great and work well, but my issue is with the battery. Apparently, you need to take each candela off of the charger base and allow it to discharge on a fairly regular basis. Otherwise, you stand the chance of blowing out the battery to the point where it will no longer hold a charge. I used them infrequently and ended up blowing them out. The units were a little pricey so I was frustrated by this flaw. I was only able to use them on 5 or 6 occasions. I chalk it up to user error (mine), but I expected to get more than 4 months life out of the candelas.

Anony-mous..it seems pretty clear that they are talking about soot from candles ("the soot released from candles" - not candelas) as a comparison. Just fyi, these are bulbs. They do not flicker.

Yes, that is the problem with pretty much anything rechargable. I am always after my boyfriend not to put the cordless phone back on the charger unless its battery is low, otherwise as time goes on the battery will lose its ability to hold a full charge.

I can see how that would make it a pain if you wanted to use the candles only occasionally and wanted to leave them on the charger so they would be at the ready. Such are the trials of modern life! Guess it might be better to stick to candles in these situations...

Er, I meant if you wanted to use the candelas only occasionally. Obviously you don't need to leave candles on a charger =P

I had one of the first generation candelas and you HAD to leave them in the charger as they had no on/off switch. Put them in the charger - light=off; take them out - light is on. Mine have burned out for the same reason but the place I bought them offers a trade-in for new ones (which have an on/off switch and replacable battery)

The Candelas use NiCad batteries which is very old technology. Nicad does suffer from the memory effect described by Enrique and Beth and I am surprised that they do not use NiMH which has less of a memory effect (but not zero) and better duration. LiIon is the best current (no pun intended) battery technology with no memory effect (no need to fully discharge before recharging to retain battery life and ability to hold charge) and most new phones should have this type of battery now so there should be no need to keep the cordless phone off the charger.

I was googling for candela and nicad and found these flickering beauts!
http://www.metaefficient.com/metaefficient/archives/lamps/aurelle-led-candles-by-philips.html

They use LEDs (Candela use incandescent) so you should get a warmer type of light and today's LEDs are pretty energy efficient so you should get long battery life.

I was given a set of candela candles by a friend but she had lost the cord to the base. Does anyone have any idea about how I can replace that cord? Is it a standard size that might be used with other appliances? I tried emailing a distributor but had no luck and now the candles have been sitting dead in a box in my room -- I'd love to get them up and working. Thanks!

Thanks for the info, Jamie pup. It got me interested in looking further into the battery llife issue and this is what I found from a quick Google search at www.batteryuniversity.com:

"A lithium-ion battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles. The battery prefers a partial rather than a full discharge. Frequent full discharges should be avoided when possible. Instead, charge the battery more often or use a larger battery. There is no concern of memory when applying unscheduled charges.

Although lithium-ion is memory-free in terms of performance deterioration, batteries with fuel gauges exhibit what engineers refer to as "digital memory". Here is the reason: Short discharges with subsequent recharges do not provide the periodic calibration needed to synchronize the fuel gauge with the battery's state-of-charge. A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem. Letting the battery run down to the cut-off point in the equipment will do this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate."

So, I guess my boyfriend is off the hook with the cordless phone! But I'll still let it run down occasionally to deal with the fuel gauge problem.

Sorry for getting so O/T
:P
Beth

Philissa,

Take the base, a candela, and any other paraphenalia to a Radio Shack. They can probably fit you with something.

jamie pup. Thanks for clarifying the differences in battery types and how they hold charges. I guess the point I was trying to make earlier was that the product is flawed because it doesn't incorporate a better, more user-friendly battery technology. And yes, I must have had an earlier generation of this product because there was no on/off switch on my charger. It's too bad. I liked the product when it worked. But my experience with the Candela burning out so soon has turned me off of all Vessel lighting products--despite the cool aesthetic design. I really question the engineering behind their products now. I think I'll explore the Philips products you've suggested instead.

Ok, just looked at the Philips Aurelle on the link jamie pup provided. These look great, and are about 40% cheaper than the Candelas!

You're welcome Enrique - and I agree, the product is flawed with that type of battery.
I checked out the Phillips link after I posted and like very much what I see. I think I will go for these in our new space!

Beth, I linked to another post of mine that mentioned battery conditioning (the fuel gauge issue) in the thread about ceasarstone and I did mean LiIon batteries in that post. Specifically thinkning about my G4 powebook and the conditioning I need to do with it but haven't.

*sigh* it's all so complicated. I guess if you use something every day you could just run everything down to empty once a month, that would be about every 30th charge... I'm certainly not organized enough to keep track of all my battery-powered items otherwise! And the thought of a technology-free weekend once a month is kind of appealing anyway, come to think of it...

Anyway, thanks for all of your helpful info, jamie pup.

Beth

I own a set that I got as a wedding gift and they are absolutely wonderful. The fact that they are well designed (ie not trying to look like a faux candle) is one of the reasons they are still around in my home.

The issues with batteries are just that, issues with batteries - it's not the product it is simply the way batteries are circa 2005. Your laptop does the same thing it's just a larger battery so it takes longer.

One thing, the candelas are just right for ambiance lighting -- great to eat and drink by. They aren't really bright enough to read by. It is one of the products that gets the most comments when people come over, and we still use them all the time a year and a half later.

I'm not trying to make ppl who bought Candela's feel bad but NiCad batteries are more like circa 1985 than 2005. These were the first type of rechargeables and your lap top will have Lithium Ion which were introduced en masse in the mid 90's. NiMH is the in between technology and I am surprised that Vessel did not at least go for these. Thus I see the problem in the same way as Enrique. The product is flawed because it is designed to work with inferior batteries. If the issue was simply with the batteries themselves then go ahead and buy a set of Li Ions or NiMH's to fix that problem. The point is that you cannot.

To be honest, NiCad batteries or not, I was still going to buy Candelas had I not found the Phillips versions as a result of research to post to this very thread. I would simply have catered for the limitations of the batteries by fully discharging and fully charging on a regular basis. Something I recommend current all Candela owners do.

Amazon has the Philip's Aurelles for $24.95 each.

OK, after having criticized vessel's product design and possibly made ppl second guess their purchase, I have to say that, battery choice and light source notwithstanding, the Vessel's product design is excellent. Take a look at the charging instructions for the Philips Aurelles here http://www.nam.lighting.philips.com/us/led/prodinfo.php
and see how much simpler the charging system is for the Candelas.

As much as I prefer LEDs and better batteries, the Vessel implementation of magnetic field charging is much better than Philips. Just place the units in the tray with no need to plug in separate charging units to the light base. It's a tough choice for me now.

Did anyone mention Smartcandle.com? I thought I read about the product here but maybe I found it in the LA Times Home section. Its basically the same idea in a simple frosted votive and operates on NiHM with a recharge base or regular batteries. They use LED, flicker and are around $12 for the basic model. http://www.smartcandle.com/

Thanks Richard - good to know about all the options. This is kinda the one in the middle with the charging base but there is still the need to separate the glass housing from the base to recharge. I like the fact that the Candelas are so simple in operation (battery charge/discharge maintenance notwithstanding) and I think they look better than the others.

BTW, my comment about the flickering beauts was a tongue in cheek reference to mr anony mouse

Which is to say, I'm not that keen on flickering faux candles

I think Hammacher Schlemmer sells another, similar, non-flickering, less-expensive version as well. Thoughts?

Alyce, I just checked out their website (thank goodness you spelt it correctly so copy and paste worked) and they have the Candela set of 4 for $15 less ($74.99) than the Vessel website price ($89) but I am not sure how much shipping is.
They also have the Tanfoglio Flameless Candles for something like $29 which use AA batteries so are not rechargeable. You could buy your own rechargeable AA's of course but you lose that ease of recharge functionality that you get with the others to vartying degrees.
I don't particularly like the look either.

We had the same problem with the candelas mentioned earlier, and honestly, we really tried to follow the directions, to no avail. Great idea, BIG design flaw.

the place I bought them offers a trade-in for new ones (which have an on/off switch and replacable battery)

Michael, what's the name of the place, and do they do mail-order?

Nicely designed product, in general, but I have to agree with complaints above about the battery flaw. Mine worked well under active usage; after forgetting to use them for a few months, their battery life declined dramatically, though. While it is nice that Vessel will recycle them, their offer to discount 25% from their inflated retail price for a replacement set is a flat-out insult -- their retail price is 25% above what you can find them for elsewhere on the www to begin with. The manufacturer should offer some sort of reasonable trade-in program to folks saddled with the early generation without the replaceable batteries. And hello, Vessel, why are you still using Nicads?!?!??

Has anyone actually succeeded in changing Candela batteries? I am a reasonably intelligent person who has read the manual and still can't figure out how in the heck to get the original batteries out!! If anyone can offer advice I would love to hear it.

I am attempting to change the batteries on the "Guardian" model, if that is what you were talking about Jo.

I'm not sure what model it is. It was a received as a gift about 18 months ago. It has the rechargeable base with 4 candelas. I have removed the candela cover, but cannot figure out how to release the plastic casing over the batteries. I would appreciate any help.

Hey Jo,
I'm trying to change my battery as well. Did you ever figure it out??

-LV

Just stumbled upon this site after googling "candela service batteries". I have a set I bought for Christmas in 2002. My batteries died very quickly too (after about 8 months) with only occasional usage.

I have tried contacting Vessel (service@vesselinc.com and service@vessel.com) a few times but they haven't responded to me. It looks like for some of the newer models you can buy replacement batteries, but I'm not sure if a 2002 model (Candela v.3.3) can have the batteries replaced, even after taking off the bottom cap and looking at them.

If not, I'd like to buy replacement candelas, but again, I'm not sure if they will charge on a 2002 charger (4 unit, grey base, model 21202).

Any ideas/suggestions?

Ryan

Vessel is ignoring my email too. I bought a set in May, used them in Sept, then in Oct and they didn't stay on more than 5 mins. I tried them again last night.

Arg.

i have to echo all the battery reliability comments here... this product is fundamentally flawed and customer service is non-existent.

my first candela set died quickly, as i used it only a couple of times per month. i was optimistic / dumb enough to believe that the product redesign (which incorporated the on/off switches and user-replaceable battereis) would address the obvious problem with their durability.

i made sure to use the second set exactly as specified by candela, and it made absolutely no difference.

one light died after about a month. the other three lasted only a few months more.

the company has ignored all requests to address the issue.

i agree that the aesthetics of the candela units are appealing, but the functionality just isn't there. for $90, you've bought yourself a product that will require $30 in batteries every two or three months... if you are lucky.

i suspect the company is overwhelmed with battery complaints and has decided to ignore them, concentrating instead on attracting new suckers rather than addressing the issue/creating loyal repeat customers.

my advice? avoid this product! i know i will never buy anything from vessel ever again.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one experiencing these problems.

I wonder if Apartment Therapy will change their recommendation from Strong Recommend to Not Recommended based on our comments?

Ryan.

Hi Everyone. This is OXO Good Grips writing. Yes, OXO. Really. You might be happy to know that we recently took over Candela products and have been working on making several improvements including switching to LED lights on all products and developing some additional shapes to add to the collection. We're also making the Guardian light up on both sides and most products will be available at a lower cost to you than before. We are working very had to ensure the charge lasts for at least eight hours and are covering it with a 3-year warranty (one year on the battery, but you'll be able to get any replacement parts you need on www.oxo.com). You'll start seeing OXO Candela products this fall in stores. If anyone has any additional comments to share, please feel free to e-mail us at suggestionbox@oxo.com. We promise, we're listening!

Ok, I bought these about 2005 and they totally suck. despite charging them for the allotted 12 hours and running them to completion.. They STILL die after about 20 minutes- AND -the switching mechanism fries to the point where placing them on the charging base will turn them ON instead of off. I have sent them back to Vessel twice, only to get WORSE performance from the newer ones.
I asked customer service about getting them ALL replaced including the base, and i was rudely denied!!! They basically replaced 2 candelas while letting the warranty run out- forgoing total replacement. No matter how cool these things look- They use cheap chinese NiCad AA bundles which is the primary culprit- but bad customer service is the reason I will never buy a Vessel product again.