The best ghost technology for your smart home for Halloween: smart bulbs, projectors, etc.

For string lights and ordinary lamps inside pumpkins or decorations, use smart plugs to plan your display, or turn the lights on or off in response to triggers.

Consider setting up a motion sensor or creating a trigger from another device, such as your smart doorbell or security camera, to trigger your chosen lighting effect. But if you want to give visitors a real jump scares, you need to add sound.

Ghostly sounds

If you’re looking for the perfect horror sound effects or a playlist of Halloween-themed songs, then you’ll find plenty of appropriately scary options on Spotify or YouTube. Strategically hidden Bluetooth speakers in decorations or even pumpkins can add a lot of atmosphere.

All the best smart speakers can help you scare guests or create the ghostly atmosphere you are looking for. If you have Alexa speakers, just say “Alexa, let’s be ghostly.” and will work through various options. There are many Halloween-related skills, such as Creepy Halloween Sounds, Scary Monster, and Cooling Halloween Spine Sounds.

Say “Hey Google, become spooky” and you’ll get some sound effects and spooky music on all the Google speakers or smart displays you have. You can also ask Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri for costume ideas or tell a scary story.

Ring, Nest and some other smart doorbells offer Halloween sounds and bells that can replace your usual melody. Take a look at your app and see if you have seasonal options. In the Ring app, select your device and tap Ringtone. In the Nest app, take a look Settings, then Bell theme.

For best results, create a trigger that triggers light and sound effects when someone approaches. You can use IFTTT to connect devices together and create a terrifying sequence. When someone rings the doorbell, for example, you can turn off all your headlights for a second, make them turn red again, and then let out a bleeding scream.

Scary scenes

Serious Halloween fans who want to take things to the next level should check out the digital decorations. Atmos FX sells MP4 files that you can play on a monitor or place on a USB playback device on your TV, but they work best with projectors. You can play ghostly ghosts, moving zombies and many other things that crash at night.