5 ways you can use smart home gadgets to upgrade your Halloween decor | Tom's Guide

Set your household up for scares from spooky smart lighting to an automatic candy-dispensing routine

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As the days get shorter and the weather cools down, the eerie chill of Halloween is in the air. You can use the best smart home devices to help your home fit the part. From spooky smart lights to motion-activated candy dispensers, here's some inspiration to make your smart home a hit with the neighbors.

These connected gadgets can be scheduled and controlled remotely to help you bring the scares, whether you're home or out shopping for the best Boo Basket picks. Read on to see how you can use the smart home gear below to make your life easier as the holiday creeps closer.

The best smart lights can add some serious curb appeal to your home. Set a routine to have your outdoor smart lights turn on automatically at sunset to your choice of colors. Most smart light apps allow you to control individual segments and bulbs while also offering preset animated themes. For example, Govee's Permanent Outdoor smart lights flare orange and purple lights in their Halloween setting.

Feel free to steal a play out of my book and use your smart lights app to sync up effects to have the LEDs dance with the music. If you've never seen a home jump to the beat of Scary Spooky Skeletons, this could be your year to change that. With smart pathways or string lights, you can draw attention to your garden and add headstones or skeletons to turn it into a graveyard. Pairing the whole setup with one of the best smart speakers to play creepy sound effects or songs throughout the season really makes it all come together.

Govee Permanent Outdoor Lights (100 feet): now $279 @ AmazonThis one-and-done permanent outdoor light setup is worth the cost since you can adjust colors to give your home's exterior some pop all year round. You can set the LEDs to basic colors to serve as standard mood lighting or create (or use preset) animated scenes to celebrate holidays like Halloween or Christmas.

Kasa Full Color Smart Bulbs (4-Pack): was $39 now $20 @ Amazon These customizable bulbs pump out plenty of light and can display more than 16 million colors. Just pair them with your network and you can link them up with Alexa and Google Assistant for routines or voice commands. I use mine as a DIY sunrise alarm clock, scheduling them to brighten to wake me up in the morning and gradually dimming down slowly after sunset to kickstart my sleep routine.

Outdoor smart plugs are an affordable and easy way to turn any of your existing plug-in decorations smart. You can schedule inflatables, string lights, animatronics, and even fog machines to turn on or off at certain times. If you want to activate them while away, their remote power controls let you start them up from the office and return to a haunted home. These are super versatile since you can use them throughout the year.

Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Outdoor Plug with Matter: was $30 now $16 @ AmazonTapo's outdoor smart plug turns a single outlet into two individually controlled smart plugs. You can turn two separate devices on or off, schedule them, or work them into smart home routines from your phone or voice assistant. Thanks to the built-in Matter support you can control it from all the major smart home platforms including Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit.

Wyze Outdoor Smart Plug: $17 @ AmazonWyze's budget smart plug — our favorite outdoor smart plug — has two individually controlled outlets with energy monitoring. It works with Alexa and Google's smart home platforms and has a powerful antenna to maximize Wi-Fi range. With an IP64 weather-rated body it can handle rain, snow, and dust with ease.

With a motion detector, motor, and smart plug, you can distribute candy out of a bucket every time someone approaches your door. The sensor can tell the smart plug, which powers the motor, to temporarily turn itself on and off. Create this routine by making the trigger when the sensor detects motion turn the motor on.

This will be a DIY project that you can tackle in several ways. I've seen creative Redditors use a hard-wired power drill at a low speed connected to an auger that pushes candy through a chute. Others have connected the bottom doors of a candy dispenser to a linear actuator to pull them open and drop candy into a box.

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Kasa Matter Smart Plugs w/ Energy Monitoring: was $26 now $20 @ AmazonKasa's compact smart plug plays nice with all of the major smart home platforms including Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung Smart Things. I use mine to control the "dumb" light strips under my bed. When my Echo Spot's occupancy sensor detects motion after 8 p.m., it turns them on automatically when I enter the room. You can also use these plugs with things like lamps, fans, or even your coffee maker.

Aqara Motion Sensor P1: was $31 now $24 @ AmazonWith this connected sensor, you can monitor your smart home for motion activity or tell connected devices to take action. It accurately detects 360 degrees of activity to kick off home automations indoors or outside.

You can customize the sounds of any Ring video doorbell to make your entryway more festive. The Ring app offers a variety of tones to choose from such as: bats, ghosts, howls, screams, spooky organs, a witch's cackle, monster grunts, creepy laughs, screeching cat or even a creaking door. If you want to take things a step further the doorbell also supports custom quick replies you can use as you make your way to the door. These include:

Ring Battery Doorbell: now $100 @ AmazonRing upgraded its entry-level doorbell with Head-to-Toe 1080p video for extra vertical coverage. This lets you see packages and people standing closer to the door. While it's stuck with a built-in battery and has a basic HD resolution compared to the rest of the lineup, its 1080p camera is plenty enough to see who's at your door and the size of the packages being dropped off.

Ring Battery Doorbell Plus: now $149 @ AmazonThe Battery Doorbell Plus is a step up from the entry-level option above with sharper head-to-toe 1536p video and a removable battery. In our Ring Battery Doorbell Plus review, we found it delivered an excellent squared video that shows what's happening closer to your front door and was easy to install with an impressively long-lasting battery life. When it's time to recharge, you don't need a tool to unmount the entire doorbell—just push a quick-release tab to drop the battery out and then slide it back in when you're done.

If you have a front-facing window and some smart curtains or blinds, you can place a scary prop behind it to pop out as trick-or-treaters approach. I know if I had the money for the life-sized Jason Vorhees statue my neighbors have, I'd have a field day as it slowly unveiled itself to unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. Plus it's a great way to ensure the kiddos only take one piece from the candy bowl if you're away.

Just bind your smart curtains or blinds to a motion sensor in your smart home app's Routines or Automations section. When the sensor detects movement, you can open the curtains to reveal a figure in the window and return them to a closed position after a few seconds.

SwitchBot Automatic Curtain Opener: was $89 now $80 @ AmazonThis little smart motor quietly pushes your existing curtains open. You can schedule it to open at certain times or when motion is detected at your door. While it works with every major smart home platform, you will need a SwitchBot Hub to enable Matter support for HomeKit.

Citolen Smart Blinds: now $79 @ AmazonThese motorized blinds feature solar panels, so once they're installed, you don't have to recharge or replace batteries. They can also be added to an Alexa or Google smart home for voice controls and integration into routines.

Hunter Fenollol is a Senior Editor for Tom’s Guide. He specializes in smart home gadgets and appliances. Prior to joining the team, Hunter reviewed computers, wearables, and mixed reality gear for publications that include CNN Underscored, Popular Mechanics, and Laptop Magazine. When he’s not testing out the latest cooking gadgets, you can likely find him playing a round of golf or out with friends feeding his paycheck to a QuickHit slot machine.Hunter started his career as an intern at Tom’s Guide back in 2019 while in college. He graduated from Long Island University Post with a degree in Communications and minor in Advertising. He has been vlogging ever since the iPhone 4 took front-facing cameras mainstream.

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