I did a quick search and, finding little, I decided to start a thread on this. What ideas do you have to automate your home for Halloween?
I’m having a party this year, and probably handing out candy as well, so I’ve got some automating to do. Back in the X10 days, I used the following hardware to achieve a great effect:
motion detector
appliance module
power strip
MP3 player
computer speakers, turned way up
strobe light
I ran the MP3 player on a loop with screaming sound effects. The motion detector was set up to detect someone approaching the front door. I plugged the computer speakers and the strobe light into the power strip. The appliance module powered the power strip. It was set to turn on with motion, and then back off after a short delay. All of this was inside a room facing the front door, with the window cracked and a human-ish silhouette inside the window.
When someone approached the front door, the speakers & strobe would go off, with screaming SFX & lights. The strobe sat in the dark room behind the silhouette. It worked out pretty well.
This year, I want to do the same, but add a fog machine. It appears that I could use a universal module to fire off this fog machine by wiring it into the remote. I assume it’s just a contact close to fire fog, with the machine on & warmed up. I’ll probably put the strobe and sound effects in the garage, so the lights come through the windows. Cheap glow lights scattered in the bushes should give off a decent green glow.
I am a huge halloween fan. So much so that I am getting married on Halloween night! Which is likely why I didn’t see your post until now. I’ve been busy boarding up windows, building coffins for tables, and generally just decoration.
That said. I don’t really use home automation for my decorations. I normally only use it to turn on everything in the evening and turn it off at the end of the night.
I am interested if anyone else has some cool ideas
So I gave this some more thought. Normally I do not have a big party, but since we are getting married we will have a lot of people over. I’m considering (if I have enough time) setting up a PLEG and some overrides for my normal daily automations. Instead I will have the lights on and have them dim up down, turn on/off randomly (or pseudo randomly).
We’re having a party this year, too… but I’m mostly interested in the front door. We have a hurricane shutter that locks the place up tight, so the theme for our party is “The Purge.” I have the audio from the commencement of the Purge, and I’ll play that with dropping down the door. My strobe & glow sticks arrived yesterday. Fog machine should arrive today.
I will be doing everything with PLEG… assuming I can get it working again. I upgraded to a Vera 3, and now my registration ID is no longer valid.
[quote=“DeltaNu1142, post:5, topic:183021”]We’re having a party this year, too… but I’m mostly interested in the front door. We have a hurricane shutter that locks the place up tight, so the theme for our party is “The Purge.” I have the audio from the commencement of the Purge, and I’ll play that with dropping down the door. My strobe & glow sticks arrived yesterday. Fog machine should arrive today.
I will be doing everything with PLEG… assuming I can get it working again. I upgraded to a Vera 3, and now my registration ID is no longer valid.[/quote]
Yeah, I got a vera3 as well in hopes of upgrading…I don’t mind paying RTS, but having a way to “transfer” licensing would be great. I think I bought 24 pleg and about 4 veraAlerts licenses.
Eithe way, it’s cheap enough to re-license them, but this time I might just buy exactly what I need.
Mine arrived last night. I bought a “1byOne” model, all of which come with a wired remote, and some also with a wireless remote. I just wired a LFM-20 into the wired remote plug as I suggested above. Seems to work fine.
