Dear Alexa, I just want to say on behalf of all of us flesh and blood humans, thank you for your service, but…and don’t take this the wrong way…you’re freaking us out with your randomly flashing light. Yours anxiously, Everyone. P.S. Maybe give the jokes a rest too.
Does your Alexa do this? Not cool, right? Your virtual assistant is supposed to be making your life easier, not introducing more confusion and fear.
But before you perform an exorcism on your home to get rid of the ghosts triggering your Alexa, you should know that there’s normally a perfectly rational explanation for the randomly flashing lights.
So, Why Is Alexa Randomly Lighting Up?
The truth of the matter is that 9 times out of 10, there’s nothing random about Alexa suddenly flashing its light. It often just appears random because you haven’t triggered it, or perhaps because you’ve forgotten you’ve set a reminder or alarm.
As you will have noticed, the Echo has a few different light hues at its disposal, and they’re not just to spruce up your living space. You can think of Alexa’s lights like the lighting array on your router or modem. The color of the light and its behavior communicate something specific.
To understand why Alexa suddenly bursts into action of its own accord, you have to learn what each color represents, so in this article, I’m going to address the colors one by one and break them down for you.
Alexa Lighting Up Without Prompt
We’ve established that Alexa isn’t just flashing you the old ring light out of boredom. It’s trying to tell you something, and that something could be that Alexa is listening to you, not listening to you, that your smart speaker is in the middle of a firmware update, or, well…loads of stuff. So, without further ado, let’s explore the Alexa rainbow.
1. Blue
The blue light is Alexa’s meat and potatoes. It’s the quintessential Amazon smart system hue, and it signifies one of four things, depending on the way in which it appears.
A solid blue light will appear after you have uttered your wake word. It informs you that Alexa has heard you and is ready to deal with your request. You’ll also notice a small cyan section within the solid blue ring. It should be pointing towards whoever used the wake word. If this happens all of a sudden, it’s likely due to Alexa mishearing a noise as a wake word.
Once you’ve made your request, you’ll notice that the cyan section starts spinning, informing you that Alexa is hard at work executing your command. You’ll also see solid blue and spinning cyan when firing up your smart speaker.
Finally, if you see an unprompted pulsing blue light, your smart speaker is preparing to install the latest firmware. Alexa usually initiates updates at night, so it doesn’t interrupt your day, which is very thoughtful, but it can still give you the shivers if you catch it on your way to the kitchen for a midnight snack.