Google adds spooky sounds to its Nest doorbells for Halloween

Over the next couple of days, you can help Momo the cat defeat underwater foes when you visit the Google homepage. The tech giant is celebrating Halloween 2020 with what it calls a “subaquatic shriek-quel” of the Magic Cat Academy Doodle it did for Halloween 2016. Back then, Momo was on a mission to rescue her school of magic, and you can defeat her ghostly enemies by swiping in the shapes and directions of the symbol above their heads. The new game features the same mechanics, except you’ll now also have to defeat sharks and other sea creatures.

Google has also launched new augmented reality characters for the occasion — just search for Halloween, Jack-o-lantern, human skeleton, cat, dog or German Shepherd in the Google app or a mobile browser on Android or iOS. You’ll find the option to summon 3D ghosts, Jack-o-lanterns, a dancing skeleton and a dog in a costume and to view them in your space.

In addition, Assistant can take you on a spooky riddle room adventure if you tell it to: simply say “Hey Google, tell me a riddle.” Or, you can ask the voice assistant to sing you a Halloween song, so you can hear its tale about helping a werewolf, a ghost and a vampire get their haunting skills ready for Halloween in Arabic, French, Indonesian, Japanese, Spanish and English across the globe, as well as in Portuguese for Brazil. If you’re looking to set the ambiance for Halloween, say “Hey Google, haunt my house” to have Assistant-enabled devices play spooky sounds and to make your smart lights flash violet, green and orange.

Finally, you can switch you Nest doorbell ringtone to something more appropriate. Google added Black Cat and Werewolf to the “Spooky sounds” theme, which will be available on Nest Hello until November 1st, 2020.