I watch spooky season movies all year long, so when I got the chance to test The Home Depot’s new 6.5-foot app-controlled skeleton—the $279 Ultra Skelly—I didn’t hesitate. While it may not loom quite as large as the viral 12-foot version, Ultra Skelly still casts an impressive shadow. With glowing eyes, a chilling Vincent Price-style voice (delivering deliciously cheesy dialogue), and four points of ghostly animatronic movement, this bony specter is every bit the haunted showstopper. Equal parts creepy and campy, Ultra Skelly is a wickedly fun way to raise your Halloween game from festive to frightful.
How It Looks: It Moves! It Talks! It’s Got LCD Eyeballs!
Beware the living dead! Ultra Skelly may look like a statue, but it’s as animated a fiend as you’d find in a Ray Harryhausen flick. Skelly has five motorized points of articulation, located at the hips, neck, jaw, and each shoulder, plus you can manually adjust its elbows, wrists, and fingers. Its eyes are lively too; each is an LCD with a slew of animations from which to choose. It has two independently controlled color LEDs as well, and five different dialogue clips.
(Credit: Jim Fisher)
Ultra Skelly has two operating modes: One with motion detection that cycles through the different clips in sequence, and another for Bluetooth control via a smartphone app called Decor Pro SVI. It’s available in the Apple App Store and from Google Play, both of which are easy to find thanks to the QR code that’s printed on the instruction sheet.
I installed the app onto my iPhone, put Ultra Skelly into Bluetooth mode via a button on its left shoulder blade, and had it paired with my phone in a matter of minutes. After that, it took another couple of minutes to update Skelly’s firmware. The app includes a copy of the assembly instructions (more on this below) and pairing instructions in case you get stuck, but its main purpose is customization.
(Credit: Home Accents/PCMag)
The app lets you change the colors of each of Ultra Skelly’s LED lights, and set each to solid, pulsing (with a slider to adjust the speed), or strobe effects. It also lets you choose the eyeball animation; the default is a bloodshot human eye with blue coloration, but there are several iris colors, plus cat and dragon eyes, and a colorful spinning pinwheel. There are also eye animations for other holidays, including an American flag, fireworks, snowflakes, and even a shamrock for St. Patrick’s Day. Ultra Skelly is suitable for year-round use if that tickles your fancy.
The skeleton has five different prerecorded phrases, all with the aforementioned Vincent Price dinner theater vibes, and you can independently customize its animatronic motion, eyes, and lighting effects for each. If you’re up to engaging in some theatrics yourself, you can record your own greeting via your phone’s microphone or broadcast live to engage with trick-or-treaters in real time.
You can also take your hands off the wheel and switch Ultra Skelly back to motion detection. In this mode, it remembers all the app customizations and cycles through all of its greetings. The mode also includes a built-in timer that keeps Ultra Skelly powered on for 8 hours straight and then shuts it down for the next 16 as a power-saving measure.
Ultra Skelly is rated for indoor and outdoor use, so you don’t have to worry about bringing it inside if you have a rainy Halloween. Its electronics are all sealed inside the body, and all of its plugs have gasket seals to keep moisture out. It is a plug-in device, however, so you’ll need to make sure you have a nearby outlet or a long extension cord available.
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How It Arrives: A Box of Bones
As you’d imagine, the 6.5-foot skeleton doesn’t ship to you in a coffin. Instead, it comes in a big, square, bright pink box. The Home Depot shipped it to me without any exterior packaging.
(Credit: Jim Fisher)
It’s a big box, but not 6.5 feet tall, so really it’s just a box full of (plastic) bones, and therefore some assembly is required. It took me about an hour, but I’ll say Skelly is a lot easier to put together than most IKEA items. The first step is getting the feet and leg supports positioned correctly. After that, everything kind of clicks into place like a puzzle. The foot bone connects to the leg bone, the leg bone connects to the hip bone, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
(Credit: Jim Fisher)
My pro tip for Ultra Skelly buyers is to make sure you have a magnetized Philips head screwdriver on hand. Skelly uses screws in a few places so it doesn’t fall to pieces. Most are pretty easy to get at, with the exception of the screw that secures the spine and ribcage piece to the pelvis, which is difficult to access. I dropped the screw inside the pelvis and haven’t seen it since. If you’ve got fumbling fingers like me, it’s a good idea to use a screwdriver with a magnetic tip to make assembly easier.
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Assuming you lack NBA height, you’ll also want to grab a small ladder or step stool to attach the skull. Ultra Skelly stands 6.5 feet tall, after all. And don’t worry if you’re in a windy neighborhood, Skelly ships with four metal stakes that keep its baseplate steady in the ground.
(Credit: Jim Fisher)
Halloween Can’t Come Soon Enough
I set up Ultra Skelly indoors to start, as I’m writing this piece at the end of summer, and it’s just a little bit too early to start decorating for spooky season. Granted, I don’t mind having it as a roommate in my sunroom. Ultra Skelly has already hung out with me and watched both Smile movies and the original Paranormal Activity.
The tech inside Ultra Skelly shows that you can use some basic components for fun results. It gets a good amount of mileage out of a few motors, a Bluetooth speaker, and a clever mix of lights and displays, but Skelly does seem a little, well, naked given the nature of the holiday.
So, I’m going to the thrift store and picking up some accessories to help Skelly get into the mood for the season. A suit jacket and a fedora would be a good start, but you never know what you’ll find at Goodwill. Skelly just seems perfect for a skeleton dress-up party, though I’ll have to seek out big and tall clothes for the costume, so my options may be limited.
But most of all, I’m looking forward to Halloween night itself. I’m going to dress up as Mose Schrute this year, and have already started stocking up on candy bars and peanut butter cups for the occasion. My house is right in the heart of a small town and gets a ton of trick-or-treaters every year, and I really want the kids to get a kick out of visiting and seeing Ultra Skelly in action.
About Our Expert
Jim Fisher
Principal Writer, Cameras
Experience
Images, and the devices that capture them, are my focus. I’ve covered cameras at PCMag for the past 14 years, which has given me a front row seat for the changeover from DSLRs to mirrorless cameras, the smartphone camera revolution, and the emergence of drones for aerial imaging. I have extensive experience with every major mirrorless and SLR system, and am also comfortable using point-and-shoot and action cameras. As a Part 107 Certified drone pilot, I’m licensed to fly unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for commercial and editorial purposes, and am knowledgeable about federal rules and regulations regarding drones.
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