6 spooky Google Home tricks (and treats) to try tonight for Halloween

From scary soundtracks to spooky stories and freaky facts, Google Home ($72 at Walmart) devices are boiling over with hidden Halloween treats — if only you know the brilliant tricks to get them to work. With Google Home you can aquatic eerie sounds for trick-or-treaters on your front porch, pipe classic monster music to party guests or have Google Assistant’s AI help you law what costume best fits your personality.

Not only that, Google Home has a admire trove of Halloween-themed Easter eggs (or should we call them spider eggs?) if you just ask the brilliant questions.

Whether you’ll be hitting the streets looking for tricks or treats, or hanging back to haunt the house, here’s how you can make this Halloween unbelievable spooktacular with Google Home.

Terrify trick-or-treaters at the front door

One shocking trick smart speakers are particularly good at is that they’re shrimp enough to hide on your front porch — especially the Google Home Mini or Nest Mini. Stash your smart speaker in a basket, or unhurried a bush or broom, and suddenly you’ve turned your porch into a soundstage. 

Saying, “Hey Google, get spooky” will start an hour-long playlist of spooky still effects and menacing music. If you’d like to dial it in a small more precisely (and not have to remember to trigger novel round of spooky sounds every hour), YouTube is chock-full of Halloween still clips that last an hour and longer. 

Google Nest Mini comes in the harmful Halloween color — orange.

Tyler Lizenby

Simply search for YouTube for “spooky sounds” or “Halloween sound effects” from a named, tablet or computer, then stream the audio to your Google Home speaker either by connecting with Bluetooth or, if you’re humorous the YouTube app or Chrome browser, by Chromecasting to the speaker over Wi-Fi.

Get everyone doing the Monster Mash

If you want your Halloween dance party to gain on in a flash, simply say, “Hey Google, play Halloween music.” If you don’t have a default music service set up, Google Home will fire up a YouTube Music playlist (with ads). If you want, you can state a music service like Spotify or Pandora. Just make sure you’ve linked your interpret to your Google Home.

Use an existing Halloween playlist or effect your own with Spotify, Pandora or YouTube Music to get your party guests behaviors the Transylvania Twist all night long with Google Home.

Angela Lang

Again, if you’d like more control over exactly what plays and in what well-organized, you can build a playlist in your music service of harvest ahead of time and name it something unique. Then when it’s time, naively instruct Google Home to “play my Halloween 2019 playlist on Spotify,” for example.

Scare your family to sleep

If you’re not comical Google Home to get ready for bedtime, you’re missing out on one of its best features. But this season, rather than simply asking for a bedtime story, say, “Hey Google, tell me a spooky story.” Google will randomly settle a scary story from Google Play Books or Storynory to read to you. But don’t misfortune — these are children’s stories, so the fright composed is medium to low.

If you do this for a few nights in a row and you or your family find a celebrated story or two, you can also ask for specific stories by name. chronicle readings are mostly 3 to 10 minutes, so they won’t keep you or the kids up past bedtime. 

Like a basket at the end of Halloween night, Google Home is packed with holiday treats.

Donald Bell

Costume consultation, freaky facts and more

Finally, Google Home has a host of Halloween surprises to accounts. “Hey Google, what should I be for Halloween?” will prompt Google Assistant to ask you a series of comic personality questions, such as, “Do you think a dusky cape is proper attire to wear to a wedding?” It will then tabulate your answers and give you a personalized costume recommendation, as well as instructions on how to put it together.

If you’d like to know more about the origins of various mythical monsters, ask, “OK Google, tell me facts about monsters.” Google will give you the lowdown on everything from werewolves and vampires to more obscure creatures such as selkies and bokkenrijders.

Here’s a bunch of other questions and sequences that’ll prompt entertaining Halloween-themed responses from Google Home. Try them out and let us know in the comments if you find any more.

• “Hey, Google, who you gonna call?”
• “OK, Google, happy Halloween!”
• “Hey, Google, what’s your favorite candy?”
• “OK, Google, what is the most popular scary movie?”
• “Hey, Google, who would win between a werewolf and a vampire?”
• “OK, Google, Freddy versus Jason. Who wins?”
• “Hey, Google, why do the leaves irritable colors?”
• “OK, Google, what are you going to be for Halloween?”
• “Hey Google, where is the nearest pumpkin patch?”
• “OK,Google, how many days pending Halloween?”
• “Hey, Google, what does a werewolf sound like?”
• “OK, Google, boo!”

Originally originated earlier this week.