WLED Halloween: Effects, Eyes, Colors and Presets You Can Paste

Halloween is Saturday, October 31 this year, so there are still a couple of weeks to get a spooky look onto the porch. WLED has more for Halloween than people expect: an effect made for it (Halloween Eyes), a convincing lightning storm, flickering candles for jack-o’-lanterns and a few palettes in the right colors.

Everything on this page works in the free WLED web interface on WLED 0.14, 0.15 and 16. The effect numbers are the same on all three. At the end there’s a file with all the presets, plus a playlist and a timer so it runs by itself every evening until Halloween.

For other holidays: the Christmas and Diwali patterns page, and a page with colors for every other holiday. Everything seasonal is collected on the holiday lights hub.

The Halloween effects worth using

Effect (ID)	What it looks like	Colors	Start with
Halloween Eyes (82)	Pairs of eyes open somewhere on the strip, stare, blink, vanish	Color 1 eyes, color 2 background	Speed 60, Intensity 128
Lightning (57)	A dim leader flash, then a burst of bright flashes, then dark	Color 1 flash, color 2 sky	Speed 180, Intensity 128
Candle (88)	One flickering flame across the whole segment	Color 1 flame	Speed 96, Intensity 224
Candle Multi (102)	Every LED flickers on its own, like a row of candles	Color 1 flame	Speed 96, Intensity 224
Fire 2012 (66)	Rising flames	Palette Fire (35)	Cooling 64, Spark rate 160
Drip (96)	Drops swell at one end and fall	Color 1 drops, color 2 background	Gravity 40, # of drips 128
Colortwinkles (74)	Random LEDs fade in and out	Palette Toxy Reaf (58) or Retro Clown (56)	128, 128
Breathe (2)	Slow glow up and down	Color 1 glow, color 2 low point	Speed 60
Solid Pattern (83)	Fixed blocks of two colors	Color 1 and color 2	Speed 2, Intensity 2

Speed and Intensity are the first two sliders under the effect list. Some effects rename them (Fire 2012 calls them Cooling and Spark rate). The numbers go from 0 to 255.

Halloween Eyes, set up properly

This is the one people search for, and it has a few quirks.

Eye size depends on the segment length. WLED makes the gap between two eyes 1/32 of the segment length (at least 2 LEDs), and each eye half that gap. So each eye is 1 LED on anything shorter than 128 LEDs, 2 LEDs on a 150 LED strip and 4 LEDs on 300. Want bigger eyes on a short strip? Set the segment’s Grouping to 2, which makes every step 2 LEDs wide. On a strip of 4 LEDs or less there isn’t room for a pair, and you just get a solid color.

What the sliders do changed in 0.15.

• On 0.15 and 16, Speed is “Eye off time”: how long the strip stays dark between eyes. Higher means longer waits. At 60 the eyes come back after roughly 8 to 15 seconds. Intensity is “Eye on time”: higher lets each pair stay open longer, up to about 8 seconds at 128. Eyes blink now and then while they’re open.
• On 0.14, the first slider is called Duration and works the other way round: higher means shorter waits. The second is “Eye fade time”. The settings above still give a reasonable result.

Colors. With the palette on Default, eyes use color 1. Red or a sickly green (28FF00) on a black background (color 2 at 000000) is the classic look. Pick any multicolor palette instead and every new pair of eyes gets a random color from it.

On a 2D matrix the eyes show up on a random row, which looks great on a panel in a window.

Halloween colors

Name	Hex	WLED RGB	Notes
Pumpkin orange	FF5000	255, 80, 0	Pure orange (FFA500) looks yellow on most LED strips. Go redder
Purple	7800FF	120, 0, 255	Strips show purple best with a lot of blue
Slime green	28FF00	40, 255, 0
Blood red	FF0000	255, 0, 0
Candy corn yellow	FFC800	255, 200, 0
Ghost white	C8DCFF	200, 220, 255	A cool white. On RGBW strips, mix in the white channel

Two things LEDs can’t do: black and brown. Black is just “off”, so use dark gaps between colored LEDs. Brown comes out as a dim orange.

The six colors from the table, one bulb each.

Halloween patterns

Orange and purple. Solid Pattern, color 1 orange (FF5000), color 2 purple (7800FF), Speed 2, Intensity 2. Speed + 1 LEDs of color 1, then Intensity + 1 LEDs of color 2, so this gives 3 and 3. Speed 0 and Intensity 0 alternate single LEDs.

Solid Pattern, Speed 2, Intensity 2.

Orange, purple and green. Solid Pattern Tri (84) repeats three colors of equal size. Set colors 1, 2 and 3, and use Intensity (the Size slider) for the block size: 0 to 31 gives 1 LED per color, 32 to 63 gives 2, and so on.

Candy corn. Solid Pattern Tri with yellow (FFC800), orange (FF5000) and white. On 0.14, a black color 3 also shows as white, so set it on purpose.

Candy corn with Solid Pattern Tri, Size 0.

Orange with dark gaps (pumpkins in a row). Solid Pattern with color 1 orange and color 2 black, Speed 1, Intensity 2: two lit, three dark. For more than two colors with gaps you need stacked segments, explained in the 2 red 1 white guide.

For a palette instead of fixed colors: Toxy Reaf goes from green to purple, Retro Clown from amber to purple, Candy through yellow, orange and purple to dark blue, and Orangery stays in oranges and reds. Use them with Colortwinkles, Breathe or Noise Pal for a slow, moving Halloween look.

Presets you can paste

Each block below is one preset. To add one without touching your other presets:

1. In the web UI, open Presets and tap + Preset.
2. Untick Use current state. An API command box appears.
3. Paste the JSON, give it a name, pick a free slot number and save.

The presets change the first segment ("id":0) and leave its start and stop alone, so they work on any strip length. If you split your strip into segments, change "id" or add a block per segment.

Halloween eyes, red on black:

{"on":true,"seg":[{"id":0,"fx":82,"sx":60,"ix":128,"pal":0,"col":[[255,0,0],[0,0,0],[0,0,0]]}]}

Lightning over a very dark purple sky:

{"on":true,"seg":[{"id":0,"fx":57,"sx":180,"ix":128,"pal":0,"col":[[255,255,255],[10,0,25],[0,0,0]]}]}

Pumpkin candle (use fx 102, Candle Multi, if each LED should flicker on its own):

{"on":true,"seg":[{"id":0,"fx":88,"sx":96,"ix":224,"pal":0,"col":[[255,80,0],[0,0,0],[0,0,0]]}]}

Orange and purple blocks of three:

{"on":true,"seg":[{"id":0,"fx":83,"sx":2,"ix":2,"pal":0,"col":[[255,80,0],[120,0,255],[0,0,0]]}]}

Slime drip:

{"on":true,"seg":[{"id":0,"fx":96,"sx":40,"ix":128,"pal":0,"col":[[40,255,0],[0,0,0],[0,0,0]]}]}

Toxic twinkle (Colortwinkles with the Toxy Reaf palette):

{"on":true,"seg":[{"id":0,"fx":74,"sx":128,"ix":128,"pal":58}]}

Bonfire (Fire 2012 with the Fire palette):

{"on":true,"seg":[{"id":0,"fx":66,"sx":64,"ix":160,"pal":35}]}

Drip starts its drops at the last LED and lets them fall toward the first. If your strip runs the other way, tick Reverse on the segment.

Or download all of them

wled-halloween-presets.json has eight presets (the seven above plus Purple breathing), a playlist called “Halloween show” in slot 9 and an “Off” preset in slot 10. Restore it under Config > Security & Updates > Restore presets.

A Halloween playlist

Six looks, one minute each, with a one second fade between them, round and round. In the web UI, tap + Playlist, add the presets, set 60 seconds each, and save. As stored JSON (this is preset 9 in the download):

{"on":true,"playlist":{"ps":[1,2,3,4,5,6],"dur":[600,600,600,600,600,600],"transition":[10,10,10,10,10,10],"repeat":0,"end":0}}

dur and transition are in tenths of a second, and repeat 0 means forever. Halloween Eyes and Lightning look better with longer slots, because both have long dark pauses on purpose. Give them 120 seconds (1200) if visitors keep missing them. More on the format in WLED playlists and Shuffle.

Preset 9 from the download.

Run it only until Halloween is over

Timers live in Config > Time & Macros and run on the light, with no phone or hub needed. You need two: one that starts the playlist and one that runs the Off preset.

• WLED 16: add a Sunset timer with the playlist and an offset of -15, and a Regular timer at 23:00 with the Off preset. Give both a date range of October 15 to October 31.
• WLED 0.14 and 0.15: the sunset slot can’t take a date range there. Use a regular slot at about your local dusk with the October 15 to October 31 range, plus the 23:00 Off slot with the same range.

Step by step, with screenshots, in turn WLED on at sunset.

From your phone with WLED Max

All of the above is plain WLED, so any app or browser works. If you use our app, WLED Max (iOS and Android), a few things are quicker:

• The Effects list shows a live preview of each effect, so you can find Halloween Eyes or Lightning and see it before it reaches the porch.
• Colors go into the Primary (Fx), Background (Bg) and Custom (Cs) slots on the Control tab, which are WLED’s colors 1, 2 and 3. On Android, the color editor you get when you customize an effect has a hex field, so you can type the codes from the table above.
• Save the result as a preset on the light, then build the rotation with Create Playlist on the Presets tab (one duration for all entries).
• Device Settings > Schedules writes WLED’s timers. Its Seasonal Range switch sets the date range on clock-time timers only, so in the app use a timer at about your local dusk with the October 15 to October 31 range, plus the 23:00 Off timer.
• If you have more than one light, Apply to Multiple Devices loads a preset on all of them at once. The free plan covers one light.

FAQ

Is there a Halloween effect in WLED? Yes, Halloween Eyes (effect 82). Lightning (57), Candle (88), Fire 2012 (66) and Drip (96) also work well.

Why are the Halloween Eyes so small? Eye size follows the segment length: 1 LED per eye below 128 LEDs. Raise Grouping on the segment to make them bigger.

Which palette is orange and purple? None is exactly that, but Retro Clown (56) goes from amber to purple and Toxy Reaf (58) from green to purple. For exact colors, use the ”* Colors 1&2” palette (3) with orange as color 1 and purple as color 2.

Will these presets work on my version? All effect and palette numbers here are the same on WLED 0.14, 0.15 and 16.