Halloween at home: color lights and motion-triggered lighting for the porch

A motion sensor turns lights on when someone moves past it, so the porch can light up as trick-or-treaters arrive and a hallway can switch to a colored scene as guests walk in. With Hue lights you choose the scene in the app; the sensor decides when it plays.

Both Hue sensors include a daylight sensor, so you can stop them firing during a bright afternoon and let them work only once it's dark.

Motion sensors decide when lights come on; outdoor color lights decide what Halloween looks like. Philips Hue's Lily spotlights sit on ground spikes and can wash a wall, a tree or your decorations in orange, purple or green, then go back to warm white for the rest of the year. Philips rates them IP65, lists about 600 lumens per spot, and the 3-pack base kit includes the power supply. Like the sensors, they need a Hue Bridge.

Paired with the outdoor motion sensor, the spots can brighten as someone walks up the path.

Yes, with some limits. Philips Hue's own Halloween ideas describe a candlelight effect that copies "the flickering flame of a tealight", suggested for a portable Hue light placed inside a pumpkin, and motion sensors in the yard that switch on flickering orange lights to look like flames. The same page suggests Lily spot lights aimed at a low angle to throw tall shadows from tombstones, skeletons or scarecrows.

Hue's page doesn't list which lights offer the candle effect, so check that the effect appears for your light in the Hue app before you plan the night around it. Hue suggests testing scenes in the app beforehand; orange, purple, green and red are the colors it recommends.

Philips requires a Hue Bridge for both sensors, and they only control Hue lights. If your porch lights aren't Hue, a sensor for the system you already use, or a light with its own built-in motion sensor, is simpler than adding a second ecosystem for one night a year.

A motion sensor reacts to movement. Someone standing still at the door for a long time can stop triggering it, so set the lights to stay on for a few minutes after the last motion.

• Point the outdoor sensor along the path people walk, not at the street, so passing cars don't set it off.
• Mount it somewhere sheltered: IP54 covers splashing water, not a downpour aimed straight at it.
• Indoors, put the sensor where guests enter, at a height that sees the doorway rather than the floor.
• Check the batteries before October 31; the Hue app shows their status.

We haven't reviewed a fog machine or a projector yet, so we don't recommend a model here. We'll add them to this guide once a product meets our standards.

• Worth buying: you already use Hue lights and a Hue Bridge, and want porch or hallway lights that react on their own, on Halloween and after.
• Skip: you don't have Hue lights. Buying a Bridge and new lights only for Halloween costs more than a plug-in motion light.
• What you have may be enough: if your porch light already has a motion sensor, a colored bulb in it may give you most of the effect.