Virtual Fireplace
A fireplace screen for a TV, a spare monitor or the laptop in the corner of the room. Every flame is drawn in your browser as it burns, so the fire is never the same twice and nothing is streamed. Choose how hard it burns, switch the crackle on if you want it, and open it full screen.
Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored on a server.
Set up the fire
Off until you switch it on. The sound is a low filtered noise bed that drifts in level, short band limited crackles that arrive in clusters, and a low pop every ten seconds or so. Your browser needs one tap before it will play any audio.
This sound is generated in your browser as it plays. It is not a recording, so nothing streams and nothing is downloaded.
Press Esc at any point to come straight back to this page.
Putting it on a TV
This is a web page, so it plays wherever a browser does. Which of these works depends on your TV, and we cannot promise any of them will work on yours.
- Cast the tab from Chrome on a computer, and leave the tab open while it plays.
- Open the page in the browser your TV or streaming box already has.
- Plug a laptop or a phone into the HDMI port and open the page there.
What it does to your screen
The picture moves the whole time, so no pixel is asked to hold one color, which is easier on an OLED than a still image. That is not the same as being safe. A fire running for hours every day still ages the panel, so give the screen the same breaks you would give it on anything else.
A canvas animation keeps the graphics chip busy, and the page holds your screen awake on purpose. A laptop or a phone on battery will drain faster than it would on a still page, so plug in for a long session.
How the fire is drawn
There is no video and no image file behind this. Flames are spawned at the base of the fire dozens of times a second, each with its own size, lifetime and sideways drift. They rise, widen, cool and die, a few embers break away and float higher, and the glow behind them follows the heat left in the flames that are still alive. The page paints all of it as soft warm shapes on a dark background, one frame at a time, which is why the fire never repeats and why the page weighs kilobytes instead of megabytes.
Frequently asked questions
Does it work on a TV?
It works anywhere a browser does. On a smart TV you can open the page in the TV browser, cast the tab from Chrome on a computer, or plug in a laptop over HDMI. Which of those works depends on the set, and some TV browsers are slow enough that the fire stutters. Try it before you plan an evening around it.
Is there sound, and is it a recording?
There is sound and it is off until you switch it on. It is generated in your browser as it plays, so it is not a recording of a real fire: a filtered noise bed under short band limited crackles that arrive in clusters, plus a low pop now and then. Nothing streams, so it costs no data and it never loops back to the same moment.
Will it burn in my OLED?
The picture moves constantly, so no single pixel sits on one color for long, which is the opposite of what causes retention. That does not make it harmless. A bright fire in the same part of the screen for hours every day still ages the panel, and the page keeps the screen awake while it runs. Treat it like any other content and give the screen a rest.
Does it use much battery or data?
No data at all once the page has loaded, because nothing is streamed and nothing is downloaded. Battery is another matter. Drawing a frame sixty times a second keeps the graphics chip busy and the screen is held awake on purpose, so a device on battery drains noticeably faster than it would sitting on a still page.