Back in the day, glow sticks were the best Halloween accessory. You could toss them in your jack-o’-lantern to give it a sickly green tinge or use it as a somewhat weak flashlight while trick or treating. But technology has evolved way beyond the glow stick’s short-lived chemical reaction. These days, smart LED light bulbs and strips can cast an eerie glow on command.
LED light makers know this, and they’re taking full advantage this Halloween. Sengled’s combo bulb and speaker, Pulse, can sync up with Pandora or Spotify to dim or darken in time to the playlist. Up to eight bulbs can plunge your house into blackness in response to cues from the music, like Pandora’s Spooky Symphony channel.
Meanwhile, Philips Hue is putting its color-changing abilities to use for decorating for the holiday. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension’s cinematographer, John W. Rutland, has a bunch of tricks for scaring treat-seekers on October 31. Using the lights and some third-party apps, he turned an average house into a more sinister setting. One simple way is turning the lights a sickly blue-green. “You can imagine somebody with a meat locker or something. A lot of bad, bad things happening in this kind of environment,” he says in the video. There is, of course, an app for all this: Hue Halloween ($2).
Rutland also recommends setting two scenes — a normally lighted one and a Carrie-inspired blood-red one — to switch between when someone rings the bell.
Satechi is another LED light strip maker; it plugs into USB outlets and is remote controlled, so you don’t need a bridge, like you do with Hue. If you need something to light up that pumpkin, Playbulb’s battery-operated flameless candle should last all October long.
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