While you may not get the day off from work or school, many consider Halloween to be just as important a holiday as Christmas — and decorate their homes accordingly. This can mean anything from epic haunted house garages and front yard light displays to something as simple as a bat-shaped wine opener in the kitchen. Somewhere in between those extremes lies Skelly, Home Depot's 12-foot skeleton lawn ornament with poseable arms and light-up LCD Life Eyes switchable between eight different effects.
Home Depot first launched its skeleton decoration in 2020. Amidst a pandemic lockdown, many were probably feeling cooped up in their homes, ready to let loose and switch up the scenery a bit — perhaps by adding a giant skeleton to their front lawn. While Home Depot offers free workshops for children, its spooky festive product was marketed to adult homeowners looking to have some fun, too. Skelly was an immediate hit and has been every Halloween since. The product often sells out nearly as soon as it hits store shelves and has inspired similar products from other retailers.
Unsurprisingly, Home Depot has no plans to discontinue its viral skeleton, and you can already purchase one in preparation for Halloween 2025. The hardware store also sells related Halloween lawn ornaments like Skelly's cat and dog, as well as a new 6.5-foot animatronic "Ultra Skelly." Additionally, Home Depot offers various Halloween creatures to accompany the skeleton, including ominous scarecrows, plague doctors, grim reapers, undead pirates, and scary creatures like spiders, wolves, and sharks. Home Depot's giant skeleton, technically called the 12-foot Grave & Bones Giant-Sized Skelly with LifeEyes LCD Eyes H5, sells for $299.
Read more: The Most Expensive Game Consoles Of All Time, Ranked By Launch Price
What Do You Need To Assemble And Power Skelly?
You won't be able to set up Skelly yourself, as the retailer says at least two adults are needed to set it up (with three adults recommended). Unfortunately, Skelly does not come as a fully constructed skeleton and consists of over 25 separate pieces. These components include a complete ribcage, pelvis, hands, and feet, so you won't have to assemble all 206 human bones one at a time, at least. Also included is a pre-wired metal frame, tether, and ground stakes to keep Skelly up on its bony feet.
Just two tools are required to assemble Home Depot's skeleton, but only one of the two — an M6 hex wrench — comes with the package. The second necessary tool, a small Phillips-head screwdriver, isn't included, so you'll need to have your own on hand. Home Depot says that, with two adults, the entire process should take about an hour to complete.
Skelly's LCD LifeEyes are not battery-powered, so you need to use the included power adapter to plug Skelly into a power source. The power adapter consumes about 17.7 watts per hour, so if your utility company charges 15 cents per kWh for electricity, you'd be paying around six cents per day to keep Skelly's eyes glowing 24/7. Skelly has a six-hour-on, eighteen-hours-off timer as well as an infra-red sensor, both of which must be set using the skeleton's control panel. An included remote will let you change its eyes from up to 20 feet away, however. The remote requires two AAA batteries, which are also included in the package.
Not Everybody Loves Home Depot's Skelly
Home Depot's giant skeleton has been very popular since it first debuted in 2020, so it's not a surprise that user reviews for the product are generally favorable. But not everyone loves Skelly — while 81% of surveyed customers recommend it, nearly 1 in 5 of them don't think it was worth buying. One common complaint is that, while the skeleton is big, it's not very strong. One user reports that their Skelly's cable snapped after three weeks or so, causing it to fall and damage its pieces, with replacement parts costing $290.
A big selling point for Skelly is that it's reusable — if you're going to spend $300 on a Halloween decoration, you'd ideally use it for several Halloweens. But one customer says that their two-year-old Skelly fell over twice in a light breeze, bending the metal pole and breaking Skelly's spine, ribs, shoulder, and hip. Said customer concluded that the quality didn't match the price.
Even worse, several users found that some bones and other pieces were broken straight out of the box, while some packages were missing screws. Others say that the head servo arrived broken, with the LCD eyes not lighting up. Some call out the manufacturer for poor quality control, with one customer claiming that their Skelly came with two right hands. If these complaints make you feel that Home Depot's 12-foot lawn skeleton isn't worth the price (or if it's just not your cup of tea), that's okay — there are plenty of other top-rated Halloween gadgets you can reuse every year.
Want the latest in tech and auto trends? Subscribe to our free newsletter for the latest headlines, expert guides, and how-to tips, one email at a time.
Read the original article on SlashGear.
