Why is my Alexa flashing? Yellow, Red, Green or Blue?

Being so used to having screens literally everywhere, it can be quite bewildering when you plug in your first echo device and the light ring starts pulsating yellow. What does it mean? Is it angry with me? Is it scanning my house for weaknesses?

As developers of games on Alexa we’re all too familiar with all of the different light colours – so we’ve put together a handy list of what they all mean:

Blue is the default colour that Alexa uses. When it lights fully blue it means it’s listening to you and waiting for you to say something. They’ll also be a light blue segment on the ring which faces your direction.

When you’re done speaking the blue light spins while it’s preparing a response for you.

If there’s no blue light, Alexa isn’t listening or didn’t hear you correctly.

If the light is pulsing green, this means you’ve got a call coming in from one of your contacts. You can ask Alexa to answer, or if you’re feeling antisocial say “Alexa, ignore.”

If the green light is spinning rather than pulsing, it means that someone just did a “Drop In” on your Echo device or that your Echo just started a call (either because you asked her to call someone or because she misheard you). To end the Drop In or call, just say “Hang up.”

This is part of Alexa’s ‘calling and messaging’ feature – which you can use to call friends or family with Alexa devices or to make announcements to other devices in your home.

A yellow blinking light means you’ve got a message or notification – quite often an update on an Amazon delivery.

You can ask Alexa to ‘read your messages for you’ or “what are my notifications” to hear the notification and disable the light.

Or alternatively you can read these messages in the Alexa app.

This means your device is on mute. You can press the microphone button on the top of your echo device to mute/unmute your device.

If your device briefly Flashes Purple this means that Do Not Disturb Mode is enabled – a feature that makes sure no-one can call or message you while it’s enabled. You can adjust these settings in the Alexa app.

You should only see an orange spinning light when your Echo is in set-up mode and trying to connect to your Wii.

If there’s a problem with Wi-Fi setup, you’ll see a spinning violet light.

If you see the spinning Violet Light often, it may be because there’s a problem with your WiFi connection – check your device settings in the Alexa app to check that your device is connected to the correct network.

Did you turn on Alexa Guard before leaving the house? If so, that’s the reason there’s a spinning white light on your Echo speaker.

You can disable Alexa Guard to make the white light disappear.

The only other time you’ll see a while light on your Echo device is when you’re adjusting the volume.