Smart technology is becoming a real phenomenon. This year alone with the advent of the all new 5G technology, lots of OEM are now making 5G capable devices which will fine-tune the future of smart devices. But that is not the essence of this article. Let us talk about the Amazon Echo, the nice smart home speaker that runs the Alexa voice assistant AI.

With the amazing sound quality of the device as well as the voice command response time, this is just the beginning of smart home tech. But one significant thing about these home smart speakers such as the Echo, Google Home or the Apple HomePod is the presence of the Right Light on its top. Sometimes, you might wonder what each color stands for or what the color meant in general. But whatever it is you wonder, we can share some reason why here.

The simple command “Alexa” usually wakes up the smart speaker and then the light auto turns blue which then swirls while Alexa processes the voice command. The light is not only meant to indicate that Alexa is no longer sleeping but also indicates it is searching for data to correlate with whatever voice command you might have given it but then the Echos ring could also show some different colors of light which could mean quite something important.

When Alexa wants you to talk

Whenever you have the Amazon Echo turned on but plugged, there is usually no light which means the speaker is at least active but waiting you to issue a command word. The moment you begin to interact with Alexa, then the Echo device starts showing white and blue lights.

• If you speak the wake word or manually wake Alexa, the light ring will turn solid blue and a small section of cyan will point in the direction of the person speaking.
• Solid blue with spinning cyan after you’ve spoken a command means Alexa is processing your request. This also happens when the speaker is powering on.
• Alternating blue and cyan when Alexa is responding to a command or query.
  
  
• The light ring will show the volume percentage in white when you manually turn the light ring on the Amazon Echo or the first-generation Echo Dot, press the volume up or down on the second-generation Echo Dot or tell Alexa to adjust the volume.

When Alexa is passing a warning sign

The Amazon Echo light would usually go red, purple or orange whenever there is a potential probelm. This is usually due to the fact that these colors are bright and who wouldn’t know that the color red meant danger. In extreme situations such as power outage or whatever the case might be, the color ranges from Red to Orange which emphasizes on the intensity of the problem the device is trying to bring to your attention. For example, Amazon Echo could display those colors because…

• Pulsing violet would indicates that there was a problem during Wi-Fi setup.
• Spinning orange means the device is currently connecting to your network.
• Solid red means the microphone has been turned off and Alexa is not actively listening for your commands.
• A spinning blue light that ends with a purple flash indicates that Do Not Disturb has been activated.
• A flash of purple after you interact with Alexa means that Do Not Disturb is still enabled.
• A continuously spinning white light means Alexa Guard is on Away Mode.

Two lights for Notification

One big leap forward is the inclusion of Call and Message sending functionality which Amazon introduced to the Alexa system. This makes it super easy to simply send a voice command or bunch of instructions that the system will execute as a message to whomever you might have requested it to be sent to. The introduction of these new features of course demands introduction of new lights which is what brought about the Green and Yellow notification lights.

• A pulsing green light indicates an incoming call.
• A spinning green light means you’re currently on a call.
• A pulsing yellow light is telling you that you have messages in your inbox. You can say, “Play my messages” or “Check my notifications” for more information.
  

Color lighting for medias

Unlike the Amazon Echo smart speakers, the Echo Show benefits from having a full display. But the device still uses similar light signals to its speaker counterparts, and they appear on the bottom of the screen in a thin band. Here are the color meanings:

• A solid band of blue with a cyan spot indicating the direction of the speaker will appear when you speak the wake word.
• A solid band of red means the microphone and camera have been turned off. After a few seconds, the light will turn off, leaving a microphone/camera-off symbol in the upper right hand corner of the display.
• A band of orange means your Echo Show is experiencing network connectivity issues.
• A band of violet means you have set the Echo Show to Do Not Disturb mode. After a few seconds, the light will turn off, leaving a crescent moon symbol in the upper right hand corner of the display.

All these colors makes sit easy for you to simply understand what is going on with your Amazon Echo/Echo Show display without really having to deal directly with it. This can be really handful in situations whereby you don’t want to talk maybe because you’re having a conversation with a friend and then you suddenly notice your Echo smart speaker blinking the Yellow or Green light.