Google Home and Nest are two of the most popular smart home devices on the market. They both have a lot of features that can be used for easy Halloween fun. Here are seven tricks to get started:

  1. Ask Google Home to play music from your favorite Halloween playlist. Just say, “Hey Google, play my Halloween playlist.” You can also ask it to play specific songs from the playlist.
  2. Set up a spooky lighting scene with Nest lights. Just say, “Hey Nest, turn on the porch light.” You can also set up scenes with multiple lights turning on and off at different times or in different patterns.
  3. Control your home’s temperature with Google Home or Nest thermostats. Just say, “Hey Google, set the temperature to 68 degrees.” Or use Nest’s voice controls to change the temperature in specific rooms without having to get up from your chair.
  4. Check your home’s security cameras with Google Home or Nest video cameras. Just say, “Hey Google, show me my front door camera.” You can also watch live streams of your cameras from any device with an internet connection (like a smartphone).
  5. Play music from streaming services like Spotify and Pandora through Google Home or Nest speakers using voice commands or touch gestures on compatible devices (like an iPhone). You can also control playback using hands-free controls built into many Android and iOS devices (like a car stereo).
  6. Get weather forecasts for your area with either Google Home or Nest weather stations . Just say, “Hey Google, ask Nest what the weather forecast is for tomorrow.” Or use voice commands to change settings like wind speed and humidity levels on specific rooms in your house (or even entire floors). ..

“Hey Google, Let’s Get Spooky”

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to take your home from zero Halloween vibes to a proper spooky mood, it’s tough to beat the “let’s get spooky” shortcut.

For several years now, Google Assistant has responded to the trigger phrase “Hey Google, let’s get spooky” by taking advantage of the smart gear connected to your Google Home.

When you give the command, Google Assistant will play a Halloween loop on Chromecast-connected TVs or Nest displays, music, and sound effects over your Nest speakers and adjust any linked smart lights for colorful Halloween effects.

If the effect is too short for your tastes (it lasts about a minute) consider making a custom routine to trigger different effects around your home.

“Hey Google, Play Some Halloween Music”

If you have your Google Assistant configured to use a particular music service as a default, then it will default to using that for your request.

In my case, for example, I have Spotify set as the default music service so when I say “play some Halloween music” it spools up a popular Halloween music playlist off Spotify. If you don’t have a default set, it will play a Halloween-themed YouTube playlist.

“Hey Google, Trick or Treat”

If you have some super antsy kids on your hands who can’t wait to get out and trick or treat, this is a great way to keep them occupied for a few minutes while you get ready for a jaunt around the neighborhood or prep some last-minute Halloween party items.

Just say “Hey Google, trick or treat” to trigger a trick-or-treat response as if your Google Assistant was answering the door and handing out candy.

“Hey Google, Tell Me a Spooky Story”

There are two Halloween story options baked into your Google Assistant. You can say “Hey Google, tell me a Halloween story” to get a short 30-second-or-less story. The stories are usually based on pun or a simple gotcha scare like somebody hears spooky sounds coming from a speaker but the speaker isn’t plugged in.

If you say, “Hey Google, tell me a spooky story” you’ll get a slightly longer interactive story where you pick which doors to open and other such things.

“Hey Google, What Should I Be for Halloween?”

Need a little AI-assist picking your Halloween costume? If you ask Google what you should be for Halloween it’ll launch into a series of questions. By giving your preferences, you’ll dial in on which monster or such you should dress up as.

Enable Nest Ringtones

If you have a Nest doorbell in your mix of smarthome gear, you can jazz things up for Halloween. In the Nest app, you can select the settings for your doorbell and change the ringtone from the default sound (the simply three-tone chime sequence that comes from the Nest’s internal speaker) to something spookier.

You can’t pick a specific sound out of the mix, but if you flip it on, visitors will be treated to different sound effects, like wolf howls and rattling bones, when they ring the doorbell. The sound effects aren’t just limited to the doorbell unit, either, if you have your Nest Home speakers set to chime, they’ll play the sound effect too.

Don’t worry about forgetting to change things back to normal, after Halloween, your doorbell will revert to the default tone.

Set Up Advanced Routines

While all of the above little tricks are fun, if you want something a bit more extended and spooky than short tales or little chimes, you’ll want to take advantage of the routine building function in your Google Home.

You can pick a trigger, like “Hey Google, let’s go to Halloween town,” and then string together a sequence of smart home-driven effects such as turning the lights orange, powering up the smart plug that controls the fog machine, playing a custom playlist, and so on.

Smart plugs are a great way to add holiday decorations into your smart home routines—they really make starting up and shutting down the show a one-command affair.