The spookiest holiday of them all is approaching and this year it is especially meaningful to trick-or-treaters who have not experienced it yet. Make this year’s Halloween a real treat (or trick) for your neighbors with smart home gadgets! As an avid enthusiast of smart home gadgets and interior design – I want to show you three ways you can brighten up your gloomy October nights and give a real fright to those mischievous neighbourhood trick-or-treaters.
- Transform Boring Candle Run-Of-The-Mill Jack-O-Lanterns Into Interactive Jack-O-Lanterns That Turn Blood-Red
What You’ll Need: A pump, pumpkin carving tools, a Philips Hue smart light (an outdoor Lily light or Philips Hue Go works best!)
The Set-Up: Carve your Jack-O-Lantern starting with the hole on the bottom of the pumpkin. This Halloween hack allows you to put your Jack-O-Lantern right over your ground-mounted outdoor lights and ensures that your larger fixtures will fit. A side benefit of this is that it allows you to also cut off any bumps on the bottom of your pumpkin – ensuring that your masterpiece will be stable on the ground all season long.
Now just program your Philips Hue lights with the Halloween living scenes to get a bone-chilling display of lights coming from your Jack-O-Lantern. Or you can supercharge the lighting experience by adding a Hue motion sensor to reveal a spectacle of blood-red lighting as soon as someone steps foot onto the porch.
The Result:
- Summon The Ghoulish Whispers Of The Dead To Address The Little Monsters At Your Doorstep
What You’ll Need: An Amazon Alexa smart speaker (e.g. Echo Dot) and a Ring/Google Nest Doorbell.
The Set-Up: A combination of a doorbell camera and Amazon Alexa’s announcements feature allows you to make bone-chilling comments about the trick-or-treaters that enter your domain. For example, “A Cowboy? Giddy on up to the door if you dare for a trick or a treat”. Or “You! The skeleton! Yeah, you – no other skeletons around. Come to the front door, I’ve got a bone to pick with you”.
- Create A Frightful Entranceway Complete With Thunderstorms And Lightning
What You’ll Need: Philips Hue smart lights and a smart speaker (or Bluetooth speaker).
The Set-Up: Give a real scare to unsuspecting trick-or-treaters this year by suddenly firing off both thunder (from your smart speakers) and lightning (from your smart lights). Philips Hue’s convenient lightning effects formula allows for easy set-up and can be triggered by an indoor or outdoor motion sensor but does not come with audio. You can also download the Hue Halloween App on iOS or Android. Some loud Bluetooth/smart speakers hidden in the bushes will be sure to result in some spilled candy and high-pitched shrieks.
Hope you these Halloween tech tips inspire you to transform your smart home into an experience the neighbourhood kids won’t soon forget!
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