What are your ideas for #Halloween? We are putting the Amazon Tap inside a scarecrow (as remote Bluetooth), Dots in the window, FireTV in the family room, and Echo on the porch! Need some good music tracks with occasional silence so they aren’t all blaring at once; what is shared? Using #SmartThings to turn all house lights on and off with phone, Alexa, and even the TV remote with #Sharptools ! In addition to that, our outdoor power modules could run a leaf blower, box fan, or yard light. Maybe power tools in the garage as the light flickers? What are your thoughts, ideas, or past setups?
Very cool! You can also use the quick browse lists in the community – created wiki to see some other ideas. If you look under project reports, there’s a list for holidays that has some Halloween stuff on it. 
Last year, I used a Hue app that did lighting effects and sounds, placed lights strategically and a small Bluetooth speaker behind where visitors would stand at the door.
My front yard light is a Victorian 3 arm style that I put flicker bulbs in. The front fence is “Wrought Iron” style. I have a very slow strobe on random flicker in the garage.
We got to keep a lot of candy last year.
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My plans are forming and I’ve got some pretty good ideas…
Gonna have the house looking friendly and nice… and then when the kids walk into the yard the happy goes away and the evil comes out!
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Last year I used a Phillips Hue in my porch light (granted, it’s not rated for outdoors) and combined that with a bluetooth speaker and the Hue halloween app from iMakeStuff. It was simple and worked for what I needed. I unfortunately don’t have any outdoor outlets, therefore I’m severely limited. One of these years I will be upgrading my panel and running a dedicated circuit to the garage and outside. However, until then, the best I have is scary music and minimal lighting effects.
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Hmm, thinking a couple of motion sensors, the Aeon Door Bell to play MP3’s and some scary spotlights controlled by smartplugs in outdoor outlets to shine against the house.
Anyone got any links to some good scary spotlights?
Have 2 more GE outdoor modules and 3 more strings of Garden Spots arriving today and tomorrow.
At this point I am pretty much just replacing the light sensing timers with the Z-wave modules to better be able to control it so everything comes on/off together. I always hated that 10-15 minutes as the sun goes down that only 1/2 of the yard is on.
Swapped out the GE bulb on the porch with Hue BR-30, still debating using the IMakeStuff Hue Halloween app or not. Right now I am just using Garden Hue: New smartapp to change hue color on a cycle or random, sunset to sunrise to cycle the 2 Garden spot sets already installed around the porch and the Hue. Issue being the Hue & Osram colors do not actually match. Of course no way of syncing the LED strips controlled by GE module & Harmony to sync with the Hue & Garden Spots.
I may end up just having the Gardenspots cycle through and the Hue’s all do their own thing. The Gardenspot being blue & Hue being a light purpling white , Gardenspot being Red & Hue being pink is just too annoying and looks like 
I do have a music control module on the LED strips, so they actually work pretty good with the Hue Halloween soundboard played through the outdoor speakers. The colors may not match, but they do flash along with the other lights. As the day gets closer I am going to play around with moving Hue lights around inside the house, putting them by windows and see how it looks with the whole house flashing along with the soundboard.
Added a new motion sensor speaker http://www.homedepot.com/p/Holiday-Brilliant-Lights-Halloween-Sound-Speaker-with-Sensor-TYY042-1625/206770923 to the lights on the bush at the bottom of the ramp.
Still can’t decide between fog machines under the handicap ramp or an outdoor projector to play movie on the side of the neighbors’ house .
Kuna just added a new feature: the ability to play 1 of 5 sounds when the porch light detects motion. There’s a chime and a couple of pre-recorded voice messages, like “can I help you?” Which lets people know there’s an audio intercom.
And they’ve got some seasonal ones for Halloween, which is very cool. 
https://help.getkuna.com/hc/en-us/articles/213797546-New-Playback-on-Detection
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Ohhh…thanks for telling us. I never even noticed this new feature! I set my defaults now.
But I will totally change them to Ghost when I have friends come over Halloween weekend. Awesome. 
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I’ve got all of my blooms and hues (collectively grouped under a virtual switch called Accent Lights) divided into two groups and have used a Simple Piston (named Halloween Lights) to have them flip-flop back and forth between Dark Orange and Dark Violet every 30 seconds. Here’s the logic:
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I’m posting several times… it’s important.
Most of my store-bought animations have a 1/8" port for a “Step Here” mat. These mats are ugly and cheaply made and an get destroyed by a twig or other pointy yard object getting pushed into them.
I want a DIY project that uses a ST control chip, maybe out of a simple light bulb, that simply makes the connection instead of the mat. I envision a case with chip, small power source (probably 3-4.5 volts DC) and a 1/8" port on the side for the mono audio cable (three-conductor stereo, if need be). So, it would work kind of like this:
(1) ST sensor (Motion Sensor, probably) detects movement near the prop and signals the hub
(2) Hub sends signal to the trigger to momentarily make contact (1 second?).
(3) Animation is triggered, then resets automatically (like it’s supposed to).
Any ideas?
Howard