Core77

Rethinking Commonplace Objects: Dissim is a Lighter You Can Invert

By Rain Noe - November 9, 2020

in Object Culture

In younger years I carried a Zippo everywhere, and considered it a perfect object--until I got a job at a restaurant, where I had to light dozens of votive candles at the start of each shift. The ability to light downwards would've saved a lot of time, spilled wax and burnt fingers.

Enter the Dissim lighter, which has been designed for both upright and inverted use.

The product page also features this cutesy, unnarrated design story that looks like a Hollywood montage sequence of how a scriptwriter imagines product designers work:

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At $48, the Dissim ain't cheap--you could buy two or more Zippos for that much)--but it does something the Zippo can't. With gift-giving season coming up, I'll put this in the category of Thing I Wouldn't Buy for Myself But Would Buy Someone Else as a Nice Gift.

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Dee An

4 years ago

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The big hole for putting your finger in... it makes the lighter bigger than necessary. Using a butane lighter to light candles isn't hard. If the candle is in a jar and hard to reach, a long match or very thin candle (I forgot what they are called) is good solution. Long-nosed butane lighters are easily available for just a few dollars, and can aid in lighting candles above one's head (are are often used for lighting gas hobs).
If a restaurant invested in this expensive lighter to make lighting candles easier, how long until someone loses or 'borrows' it?

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- Austin Liu
  
  Dee An
  
  4 years ago
  
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  The way they market it is with pictures of people lighting candles, but all the people who buy this will be using it to smoke pot from pipes where holding a conventional lighter upside down or sideways to light the bowl is annoying. But if they advertised it that way, people would judge them.
  
  At the same time, there are torch-style lighters for this task which are a lot cheaper. Any smoke shop in any big city will have torch style lighters. I don't know how much the typical smoker would be willing to pay for a lighter like this.
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Stan Spangenberg

4 years ago

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Clever, but we always tilt the candle instead of the lighter. That works perfect for us.

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- Austin Liu
  
  Stan Spangenberg
  
  4 years ago
  
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  It's not for candles. It's for pot smokers who need to keep a flame on the bowl when they toke. The solution to lighting candles has already existed for decades—"aim & flame" long neck lighters, and does not require this much industrial design.
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- Frank Borsboom
  
  Stan Spangenberg
  
  4 years ago
  
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  Come on! ;) That's not the way to think when creating new products. :) plus, sometimes our big candles go out because the candle wick is too short, and tilting the candle will just make the wax drip on the table... Although it does burn better that way...
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Kyle Lamson

4 years ago

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You can revive your old Zippo with a butane torch insert that'll to the trick... at a much friendlier price point.

https://www.zippo.com/collections/lighter-inserts

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- E. Agle
  
  Kyle Lamson
  
  4 years ago
  
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  Wow way cooler concept those inserts!
  Thanks for the tip!
  
  Ps. I'd almost (re-)start to smoke :-)
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