This is how you make your house spooky for Halloween

The spooky season is almost here and Halloween is quickly approaching, which means you’ll see a lot of houses with some extra ghosts and goblins. Whether these types of decorations are your style or not, your smart home could be the creepy secret ingredient you’ve been looking for.

From creating special lighting to spooky sounds with your smart devices, we’ve rounded up some easy ways you can bring a haunted house atmosphere to your home that trick-or-treaters are sure to enjoy.

Setting the scene

The perfect way to make your house spooky is with special lighting, because a brightly lit house usually doesn’t give off a spooky feeling. While dimming the lights indoors and outdoors is a good start, integrating the best smart bulbs can help you reach new levels of creepiness.

Any smart light can help create an eerie atmosphere by dimming and flickering randomly, but adding color can really help create an atmosphere that will raise the hair on the neck of visitors. Many of the top brands, such as Philips Hue, Govee and LIFX, have preset scenes that use green, purple, red and more, plus the option to enable random flickering.

Of course, adding outdoor string lights into the mix will make your spooky home even more eye-catching.

Configuring your lights is a good start, but if you connect smart sensors to the lights you can create automations for Alexa or Google Assistant. These automations allow you to schedule when specific lights turn on and off or respond to motion sensors.

There are many purchasing options for these types of sensors. For example, you can buy one from the same brand as your lamps Philips Hue And Gov. Or, if you have a hub or smart speaker that can act as a hub, like the Amazon Echo (4th Gen), you can use third-party Zigbee devices like this one from Third reality.

Add sounds from the unknown

Halloween is the time when your smart speaker can really shine. In addition to answering questions, the Amazon Echo and Google Nest smart speakers and displays can play virtually any song you request. But these devices can also help you get into the Halloween spirit with built-in features made just for the spooky season.

For example on a Google speakerIf you say, “Hey Google, get creepy,” you’ll get an hour of what Google calls “spooky sounds and music.”

Here are additional phrases you can use on your Google Nest:

• “What does a werewolf sound like?” While it may seem obvious how Google would respond here, it’s still fun to hear the howl itself.
• “Okay, Google, boo.” Google responds with “Were you a ghost the whole time? I should have known,” and some nice sound effects.
• “Hey, Google, tell me a scary story.” Here you get an interactive adventure-style story, complete with creepy sound effects.
• “Okay, Google, Happy Halloween.” Your Google Assistant will give you some fun choices, like singing a Halloween song, a riddle, and more.

For Amazon Echo users, you can ask Alexa to play creepy sound effects, tell a scary story, or even share Halloween jokes. (This is also a great way for your kids to get ideas for their prank to use while trick-or-treating!) Amazon offers lots of different skills, like little apps for your Echo, including Halloween skillswhich you can activate to make your Echo devices extra creepy. The Halloween sounds skill is great for adding extra spooky sound effects to your home, especially if they’re local Jack Skellington Echo Dot.

Whether you use Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, these ideas can add an extra layer of spookiness to your home. As technology continues to get smarter, there are sure to be new ways you can keep your smart devices working for years to come. Moreover, don’t forget about your smart home’s security devices. This is another great tool to help you achieve a spooky Halloween feeling.