The first smart home system designed to fight tech abuse

Smart homes are tempting us to spy on family members. What time they get home, how long they watch TV... ‌ Candle can help you resist this temptation.

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‌Say goodbye to the cloud

Candle protects you from corporate surveillance by keeping your data in your home. It's the only way to guarantee privacy.

‌Even the voice control AI runs 100% locally.

Easy to use

Commercial smart home systems are easy to use, but harm privacy, while existing privacy friendly smart home systems are difficult to use.

Candle gives you both, so you don't have to choose between privacy and convenience.

 



Privacy doesn't have to be a luxury

Build it yourself for just 85 euros

Get Candle

...or get the touch screen version

Which doubles as a privacy friendly photo frame

Get Candle

Maybe one day you will be able to buy Candle in a store. Would you like to be informed if that ever happens?

Your email address won't be used for anything else


‌Candle works with hundreds of devices...

‌...but if you want to keep your data private, please purchase the devices we recommend.

Recommended devices

More privacy protecting features

  • App store

    Sort apps by level of privacy protection

    The Candle app store allows you to add extra features, created by us or the community. Privacy scores help you choose the best options, and you can check out the source code for all apps too, making Candle very transparent.

    Available apps
  • Audio

    Play that funky music

    Streaming services like Spotify create profiles based on what you listen to, and sell predictions about your mood.

    Candle offers more privacy friendly alternatives. Discover new internet radio stations, which cannot profile you in this way. Or stream audio from your devices via Airplay or Bluetooth.

    Candle can output audio over the headphone jack, HDMI, or Bluetooth.
  • Energy use

    Energy insights

    Recording how much energy you use is a great way to change your habits.

    However, this data can also reveal behaviour in the home. That's why built-in privacy protecting features limit for how long data is stored at the highest level of detail.
  • Hotspot

    Tame your Wi-Fi devices

    Candle can broadcast a "guest Wi-Fi network for your things". If you connect smart home devices to it you will be able to see what internet servers they are connecting to. You can even block these connections.

    Built-in privacy protections prevent you from using this feature with phones, tablets and computers.
  • Photo frame

    Keep pictures private

    Show your favourite photos without needing to upload them to the cloud.

    As a bonus: you can also easily print your photos by connecting a Peripage photo printer via Bluetooth.
  • Privacy Manager

    Delete your data

    Privacy Manager offers an unprecedented level of control over your data. You can mass-delete parts of your data logs, or you can be very precise, and remove or even modify specific data points.

    If you connect a Peripage printer via Bluetooth you will be able to print a log to paper, after which the data you just printed will be deleted.
  • Blur

    Mute and Blur

    The best way to protect privacy is to not collect data in the first place. 

    Muting a device will ignore its incoming data.

    Blur a device to accept its data at a slower interval. For example, save a device's data every 10 minutes instead of every 10 seconds.

Detect Stalking


Stalkers are using Apple Airtags to not just track their keys... they are tracking people too.

Candle can warn you when Airtags (and similar Bluetooth trackers) appear in your home.

Award winning

Candle won a 2020 Dutch Privacy Award 

Ethical Innovation

Candle is a Dutch design research project, and is publicly funded. Our goal is to accelerate the transition to privacy friendly technology. 

‌Consumers can only demand better products if they know better products are possible.

About us

Powerful prototypes

We work with designers, artists and researchers to explore new ways to protect privacy.

Our research

Bringing attention to tech abuse

Smart homes have some serious issues:

Corporate surveillance
‌When companies sell profiles and predictions based on your behaviour.

Coveillance
‌When family members use smart home technology to spy on each other.

Learn more