Gadgetory

hello and welcome to cnet's the fix the show about do-it-yourself tech and how to's i'm eric franklin and I'm Donnell bell I'm super excited about Halloween and we have a lot of great ideas to share with you that's right I'm not really into the whole dressing up thing but I love the trick-or-treat ass back you know giving out candy that kind of thing and we got a do-it-yourself project that every trick or treater your neighborhood will totally be into if you're not around on Halloween the hand out candy first of all you're a horrible human being but the least you can do is keep a bowl of candy out for the local monsters as an extra Flair I'm going to show you how to make an inexpensive interactive Halloween decoration that will light up your candy bowl as people approach your house so here's what you're gonna need you're gonna need a motion-activated flood light some colored bulbs to put in it they socket adapter this is just like 23 bucks a box to mount it all on this is a deluxe $14 craft tissue box it works perfect for this project but you could probably go a lot cheaper you're gonna need a whole big candy bowl to put the whole thing in an extension cord couple screws hopefully just have these around the house and of course lots of candy so the first thing we're going to want to do is to wire up our flood lights so that we can plug it into our extension cord right now we're just dealing with bare wires so we're going to use the socket adapter we're going to pop out the little blades and then wire up each blade to the bare wire and have this all ready to plug right in so I'm going to thread the wire to the back of the adapter pull it through clamp it down do the same thing with the other wire good enough not to get electrocuted place the blades back in the adapter finally use this little wedge here to keep the wire separated no one gets hurt alright so now this $8 floodlight is a motion-activated lamp test it out we're gonna have to plug in our light bulbs I use these color-changing LED bulbs because one they don't get hot like incandescent bulbs will and also they came with a little handy color-changing remote control so I can dial in exactly what spooky color I want to use all right now it's time to mount the floodlight on to the box we're going to do this for two reasons one we want the extra stability the box is going to give a little platform to raise it up above the candy we're also going to do this to conceal all the cables that are inside the box if we don't exactly want prying fingers to find alright so there we go got our nice light fixture here got the cables inside concealed now we're really doing this properly we'd probably paint the box up a nice black or orange color to make it thematically appropriate but for the sake of this demo this is what you're getting so here we go i got my bowl i got my light fixture in here first step is I'm gonna plug it in to the extension cord set it up get it nice and centered all right now for the fun part horn in the candy all right come and get a kid's get the name-brand candy got the good stuff all right and then for the last part let's adjust these lights down so that they give the candy a good spooky glow we're all set okay let's give this thing a shot see if it works it works all right so there you go that's how to make your own monster detecting candy illuminator a fun simple project and one that's affordable enough you're not gonna mind if it gets stolen by vampires that's was actually pretty cool thank you I'm pretty proud of that one you shall I in with it you can go low in and cheap out or you could like put on top of a mummy head or something like that why didn't you do that next exercise yes sir okay time for a quick break and when we come back we're gonna show you how to create a one-of-a-kind party atmosphere using the tech you already own welcome back you know I really love entertaining people at my house usually that involves forcing them to watch episodes of the wire but right now we're gonna show you how to take an ordinary room throw in some tech and then make that room extraordinary that's right we've got a how-to that uses cool lights cool music and your smartphone to create the perfect party atmosphere if you want to have a killer Halloween party and you already have philips hue bulbs there are a couple of ways to turn them into a fun and spooky centerpiece for your halloween party so i have for philips hue bulbs already set up and i can of course control them from the official app but i also have a couple of other apps that let me sync the bulbs with any music or spooky sounds that i'm playing the first option is called Hugh Halloween and it's available for iOS and Android I love it because it's really simple to get things started launch the app and then hit the button on your hue bridge to get things synced then hit the light bulb button to choose which lights you'll use with the app so i'll set the mood in this case piano music creepy already but let's throw in some sound effects and you'll see that as I change the effects the light sync with whatever is playing like this that one's really creepy they also have other moods that you can choose from for background music I can put some raindrops in the background hit it with a zombies sound this app is great because of all the built-in options but it does require you to man it now if you want more control over the music and how the lights react to it check out Hugh disco it's available for iOS and Android to get started you'll launch the app and then sync it with your hue just like Hugh Halloween then go ahead and choose which light bulbs you want to work with the app again the more the merrier or scarier in this case once you do that head over to the disco tab and here you can really fine-tune the controls so the most important one is really microphone sensitivity because if you're having a really rowdy party you want to make sure that the app can still pick up on the music that you're playing so if you have a lot of people over crank up the sensitivity the other thing to check out is the transition control so you can choose between smooth for a smoother transition or snap which gives you more of a strobe effect kind of like a club feel and if you can't decide just choose mix and then go ahead and queue up your music and hit start so those are just a couple of fun ways to use your smartphone to add a little more flair to your halloween party but you can also use these same tips year-round during any other events you're hosting I think we may have saved the best segments for last oh yeah yes can I get a drumroll please show you gotta call a pumpkin of course that's right dan graziano took this task on he's gonna show us how using templates online can help you perfect this holiday tradition this Halloween I'm going to teach you how to add some extra flair to your pumpkin without breaking the bank some of us like myself for example aren't very good at drawing luckily there are a lot of websites out there with free templates that can help you carve the perfect pumpkin slight like Martha Stewart and thinkgeek off some good template for beginners if you want to design that's a little more crazy I would definitely try googling a specific idea to get the job done you'll need a nice big pumpkin and a template from the internet I chose this one of Philip J fry and my favorite character from the show futurama you will also need a pair of scissors to cut up a design a big spoon or ice cream scooper to clean up a pumpkin a sharp knife for carving some pushpins a marker tape and either a candle or an LED light to bring it to life we are going to start by cutting out the top of the pumpkin near the stem make sure to place the knife at a 45-degree angle so the lid will have a place to rest when you replace it if you cut straight down the lid will simply fall through the pumpkin once that's done use the spoon to remove the seeds and the innards of the pumpkin I recommend saving the seeds and posting them later for a tasty treat the pumpkin maybe a little dirty you may have to wipe it down with paper towel or a napkin print out the template you found online and use a pair of scissors to cut out the areas you will be carving into the pumpkin tape the template onto the pumpkin and use a marker to trace the carving lines for the spots you can't get with the marker use the pushpins next we're going to remove the template and begin carving along the pattern and there you have it all you have to do now is place the candle or LED light inside of the pumpkin the possibilities really are endless with this you could use a drill to make some quick holes in the pumpkin cookie cutters for cool designs a potato peeler for extra surface details or even for your next holiday party throw Bluetooth speaker inside just have fun with it hmm not too bad not too bad at all little known fact Donald can I have never carved a pumpkin before that's sad I know you haven't lived I haven't Lumpkin carvings the best collar you've seen the video now you're an expert on it I expect more from you that is a really good point and I'm gonna try it out okay good all right that's it for this week's show you can reach out to us i'm at Donald on Twitter and I'm at me Doughboy on Twitter we also have our email address the fix at cnet com emails what you think of the show send us your pumpkin photos yeah all that stuff yeah questions comments or anything else see you next time goes on the fix you