Halloween is a prime holiday for tinkerers, creating spooky effects and haunted lighting through automated solutions. As more connected devices and services hit the consumer market, Halloween opportunists delight in the new ways the Internet of Things (IoT) can make the most of this celebrated season. 

Here are some tips on automating Halloween and staying connected with your little monsters, witches and goblins.  

It’s all in the lights

According to  John W. Rutland, cinematographer of the upcoming supernatural horror film Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (in theatres worldwide October 21), the key to making things scarier is by learning to manipulate lights to create spooky shadows.

Rutland and Royal Philips have teamed up on some tips to make your home spooky using Philips Hue smart bulbs.

For starters, you can spice up your carved pumpkin Jack-o’-lantern by placing a Philips Hue Go inside instead of an open flame candle. The smart bulb is a rechargeable, portable light that lasts up to three hours on a single charge. You can use you mobile app to change the color of the bulb, set timers, or even set dynamic effects to make the pumpkin head more eerie.

Another trick is to use Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus under cabinets, islands, counter and replace all your light fixtures with Philips Hue A19 and BR30, group the lights and dim them low, except for the Jack-o’-lantern which should be quite bright to stand out, to complete the spooky ambiance. You can even download an app like the Hue Halloween for iOS and Android that allows you to set sound and light effects using your Hue lights.

Smoke ‘em out

Haunted houses aren’t complete without the ominous mist that creeps out from nowhere. To set this up, you need a fog machine (don’t forget the juice!), a Samsung SmartThings hub, an Aeon Labs Multi-Sensor and a GE Outdoor Light Plug-and-Control Power Outlet.

First, find a place where the Aeon Labs Multi-Sensor will be triggered when someone walks to your front door, but make sure it’s not easily seen, to create an air of mystery. Plug in your fog machine to the GE Outdoor Light Plug-and-Control and using the SmartThings hub, so that when the Aeon Labs Multi-Sensor is triggered, the fog machine does its job.

Out and about

Parents will surely want to keep track of their kids as they go about trick or treating and thanks to IoT, parents can track their kids even in the comforts of their homes using kid-friendly trackers such as the FiLIP 2, which essentially is a wearable phone for kids with a combination of GPS, Wi-Fi triangulation and cell tower triangulation to determine the exact location of your kid.

The device also has an emergency feature which, when activated, automatically triggers a location beacon, ambient sound recording, and calls each of the five contacts saved until one is reached.

The device costs $149.99 and comes in  Superhero Blue and Watermelon Red but you can easily swap bands with Limesicle Green or Awesome Orange which comes at $34 a piece.

For adults who prefer to accompany their kids or those who are hitting a bunch of Halloween parties and don’t want to run out of juice while out and about, Jackery,Inc. offers various powering solutions for different needs. There are portable chargers or power banks that can bring your mobile back to life after a few minutes of charging, a charging hub which allows multiple devices to charge at once, and there are also mobile cases that doubles as a battery pack so you don’t have to carry an additional item when you go. Price starts at $10.99 for the Jackery Mini which is a 3,200mAh lipstick-sized power bank.

photo credit: kevin dooley via photopin cc