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Home Depot’s 12-foot Skelly gets app controls
Home Depot’s giant Halloween skeleton now adds app-enabled head and mouth controls, Bluetooth voice features, and 20 eye effects for 2026.
Image: Gizmodo
Home Depot is giving its 12-foot Skelly a notable tech refresh for 2026. The retailer will still sell the original version for $299, complete with LCD LifeEyes and eight expressive options, but this year it’s also introducing a new model with app-enabled upgrades.
According to a Home Depot press release, owners will be able to customize head and mouth movements using servo motors, speak through the animatronic in real time over Bluetooth, record up to 30 sounds, and pick from 20 different LCD LifeEyes effects.
That means Skelly can do a lot more than loom over a yard. The upgraded version also includes voice-changing effects, adding a live-performance angle for Halloween setups.
Home Depot is also expanding the lineup around its breakout decoration. A new 11-foot mummy friend will join Skelly this year for $299. Its eyes and chest light up, and users can pose its shoulders and adjust the wrappings to set the display.
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Other new 2026 additions include interactive animatronics tied to recognizable franchises: a Flying Monkey from Wicked, a trio of Gremlins, and a Stitch figure that leans more cute than creepy and includes a holiday outfit so it can stay up through Christmas.
The full lineup of Home Depot’s “larger-than-life animatronics, immersive décor, and interactive features” goes live on the company’s website and app starting tomorrow, July 16. Items will begin arriving in stores in late August.
Frontier Editor
Dan is our resident futurist, covering electric mobility, space exploration, and the smart home. He's interested in atoms just as much as bits. Whether it's a new battery chemistry, a reusable rocket, or a protocol that finally makes IoT devices talk to each other, Dan breaks down the engineering that pushes humanity forward.
via Gizmodo
