Skip to main content

Here’s how to throw a killer Halloween party in your smart home

With the spooky season just around the corner, you’re probably already thinking about how to throw the killer Halloween party — one that strikes a perfect balance between scary and delightful. Smart home tech can lend a hand and trigger effects that add to the atmosphere — or even send shivers down the spines of trick-or-treaters who dare to come to your doorstep.

Whatever your goal this Halloween, you don’t have to invest in a lot of gadgets to make it happen. If you have a basic smart home setup, you might already have everything you need to add some chills and fun to your next monster mash.

Use motion sensors to trigger spooky sounds

Have a smart home security system? Then you can probably rig up your motion sensors to play a spooky noise. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a motion sensor, either — your smart camera can trigger other devices in your smart home when it detects motion.

Just place a speaker on your porch, perhaps tucked away behind a pumpkin or a bit of straw. When a group of unsuspecting kids show up to ask for candy, they set off the motion sensor on the camera, which triggers the speaker to play the sound of a zombie’s moan or the cackle of a witch. Bonus points if you set up an animatronic hand to rise up out of the straw.

Let smart lights set the mood

Thanks to your smart lights, you can cast a ghastly glow over your entire home. The moment guests walk in the door, they’ll be greeted by the glow of your lights. You could even set up the lights in one particular room to glow red.

Smart lights let you take things even further. Almost all smart lights have special effects you can use to cause them to flicker. Implement these effects throughout your home to immerse party guests deeper into the theme of your party. If you have an individual smart light that you can plug in through an extension cord, you can even use them to light up your pumpkins.

Let Alexa suggest a movie for you

Your Echo can serve as the control center for your entire party, changing the lights as needed to keep up the mood. At the same time, you can ask Alexa to suggest a movie for you. If you’re not a fan of over-the-top scary movies and prefer something a bit more lighthearted, just ask.

There are numerous Alexa Skills like Movie Recommender, MovieBot, and others that can suggest a movie to you. If a Scooby Doo marathon sounds more up your alley than a Scream marathon, Alexa can help you find the perfect flick that won’t have you sleeping with the lights on.

spooky halloween lighting haunted house

Rock the night away with the Rocky Horror soundtrack

A good party is comprised of several different elements: Tasty food, the proper atmosphere, and great sound. You’ll want background music of some kind playing at your party, especially if you don’t have movies showing. It can be tough to find the right music for a Halloween party, but thanks to services like Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and more, you can play the soundtracks of your favorite movies.

There are also numerous fan-made playlists you can tap into. After all, what’s a Halloween party without someone playing Thriller at max volume?

Use smart plugs to power up fog machines

It might not be a dark and stormy night in your neck of the woods, but it sure can be a foggy one. If you use a smoke machine to make the environment just a bit spookier, a smart plug is the perfect way to control the machine. You can activate it from your phone.

Even better, you could have the plug turn on when someone triggers a motion sensor in a different room. Imagine starting to walk down a hallway, only for it to be flooded with fog. It makes it easy for you to turn your home into a haunted house in the best possible way (minus all the actual ghosts.)

October is just around the corner, and with it comes the perfect time to celebrate your love of the macabre. Let your smart home help you throw the perfect Halloween party this year or make your porch the spookiest one in the neighborhood.

Editors' Recommendations

Patrick Hearn
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Patrick Hearn writes about smart home technology like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, smart light bulbs, and more. If it's a…
Amazon might be bringing AI smarts to its Astro household robot
Amazon Astro following a person through a door.

Amazon Astro is one of the most intriguing products in the Amazon catalog -- and a new report indicates it might become even more enticing in the future. According to internal documents, Amazon will be bringing enhanced AI to Astro, allowing it to perform more useful tasks around your home.

The AI project has been dubbed Burnham, and it’s hoping to turn Astro into more than just a smart home gimmick. Once the project is officially rolled out, Amazon hopes to give Astro the ability to better remember what it’s encountered in its environment and suggest things you can do to improve your home’s safety.

Read more
Your Google smart home devices just got a lot less talkative
A person standing in a living room while looking at a Google device.

Smart assistants are an indispensable part of any smart home, making it easy to give hands-free commands and control a variety of gadgets. Google is looking to further streamline the performance of its smart assistant, with the expansion of chime alerts to cut down on how talkative your Google Nest gadgets are when responding to instructions.

For example, after asking Google to turn on a fan, you’ll now be able to hear a quick chime to confirm the assistant has heard your instructions. Previously, confirmation would come in the form of a short sentence, such as “OK, turning on your fan.”

Read more
Google stops updating third-party smart displays
The Lenovo Smart Display on a table.

Google Assistant is one of the most popular smart home assistants of 2023, but it looks like big changes are in store for the remainder of the year. According to an updated support page, Google won’t be pushing any more Assistant updates to select third-party smart displays.

The Lenovo Smart Display, LG Xboom AI ThinQ WK9, and JBL Link View are the three smart displays in question -- and if you currently have them in your home, don’t expect to see further updates for their Assistant platform. They will, of course, continue to function as they did before this announcement, but they won’t receive any more software updates to enhance their performance.

Read more