I think this might be the year! When I was a teenager I was very into decorating Halloween displays. Now that I'm older (not "adult" 
) I would love to get back to it.
What are some things that people do that can kinda be a flex on the neighbors with home automation?
Digital decorating is the "new" norm for Halloween as well as Xmas & other holidays. Check out atmosfx.com for more info. I have all of AtmosFX digitals & they are fun to decorate with. I just bought their "Hollusion" material for back drop to project on. You can use motions sensors to trigger projections when someone walks up to your door for candy, etc.
If you have Hue bulbs or any color changing bulbs they are great as well for effects in yard & home.
As for the Hollusion material from AtmoxFX, I know they sell out of this QUICKLY at this time of year & it is usually Spring before they get it back in stock, so order early if you think you want this since Halloween is fast approaching, but a thin shower curtain is "mee OK" for projecting on. Hope this helps!
+1 on the motion sensors! Had one on my lamppost that detected motion which started some eerie music playing through sonos speakers in the windows. Then an additional motion sensor on our porch which turned on some scary lights etc when the kids got closer.
Also put multi-colored Smart bulbs in pumpkins - less of a fire risk and could change colors for fun effects. I used some cheap ceramic light fixtures as the base.
My house is in a big rural development with many of the houses set back quite a distance from the road and between them. It is also without streetlights ...pretty hard to trick or treat. A couple of years ago, someone started a hayride for the kids & any parents that want to ride along. Works great for the kids but now the doorstep stuff doesn't work. We do some pretty good, easy set-up decorating at the end of the driveway but I'd like more of a light show on the house. Old men and ladders don't mix well, and I want fast setup to boot. I'm looking at a LaserCube but that's a lot of money.
What I have found works best for projection (front and back projection) is to use chiffon available on Amazon and the fabric store. The Platinum color works best.
I have gone a few methods for it, all based around lighting.
I keep thinking of other things like relays to trigger movement, curtain controllers moving stuff up and down or back and forth... But I never seem to have enough time. So it only gets a couple new pieces a year.
That's what I use, works fine.
i've been planning but haven't pulled the trigger yet on year round LEDs and adjust the colors with the season/holiday
I would LOVE to do this. Unfortunately to do it with reliable quality results I think would be a pretty healthy undertaking.
I once lived in a small community in the middle of a rural area. People would bring in van loads of kids to our neighborhood to trick or treat, There was such a stream of people that we just sat outside and dished out the candy. We probably got 250 kids of all ages come by the house. We had a big black lab who loved sitting out on the front porch with us. She loved the kids and loved them to pet her.
For the past 20 years, we live in a neighborhood with strict limitation on ages and hours for trick or treating. We are lucky if we get 75 people. They come sporadically, so you cannot wait outside for them. Fortunately, my Ring doorbell alerts us before they reach the front door. Due to the limited participants, it just is not worth going to extreme lengths like it was years ago when we had large crowds.
Our current neighborhood ranges between 30-40 kids (it is mostly older empty-nesters but starting to change over a bit). Even so I have expanded our decorations (Halloween and Christmas) quite a bit.
Our PREVIOUS house was much smaller with almost no yard but we packed it pretty well with stuff. When we moved in the neighbors did not mention that we would see 300-400 (!) kids on Halloween. That first year we were scrambling around for ANYTHING we could give out just for the kids still around the house so we could turn out the lights... The second year we were better prepared (had a good setup for a little over 300 kids) and STILL had to scramble towards the end.
It has been quite a change of pace. Of course last year was pretty slow... but not as bad as a rainy night a few years ago. So it can depend a lot.
I have Inovelli Color bulbs in our lamp post. I have a rule that automatically sets them to a dark orange color at Halloween. I also have string lights on the gutters that I set to orange on that day. Unfortunately, those can not easily be setup with Hubitat, so I manually have to turn them on…
Inside, I have my color bulbs set to Red to give it more of a Halloween vibe.
if you're using something like WLED, there is an integration 
Unfortunately, I’m using the lights from Costco. I might eventually move to WLED though…
Unfortunately I missed the boat on the 12 foot skeleton again this year... 
Ah well...
Anyone have any rules to make lights flicker randomly, maybe when ring doorbell is rung?
I ordered the hollusion material for use in Melbourne AU - very excited but worried it may be too light for it to work outside. I did a couple tests - if it's cloudy it looks ok.
I used hubitat last year to have people dance on the drive way to wake up the spooks (push wav to google max) and change lights. that worked great.
keen to see if i can setup a stand here to summon the ghost on the hollusion material - i have the different video files but don't want it to cast and show the loading screen etc just want it to play the videos straight away (I have a chromecast ultra i can use)
has anyone got this to work cleanly with he?
Download the Hubitat app
