Alexa Lights Meaning: The Complete Guide

The colored light ring on Amazon Echo smart speakers has been a distinctive design feature ever since Amazon released the first generation in 2013.

The Echo Show smart displays also use the same light notifications, but instead of a ring light, they have a light bar below the display screen.

Whether your Echo device is receiving a call or alerting you about an Amazon Shopping delivery, it uses seven different colored light notifications to communicate and help to optimize the user experience visually.

The different colored light alerts can be confusing, so we have written this article to help you decode what the various colors are trying to tell you.

Read on to find out more detail about the colored light on your Echo device and how you can turn it off or disable it.

Alexa Spinning Blue Light

The spinning blue light on all Alexa devices is the most common light ring you’ll see. Whenever you make a voice request to Alexa, the spinning blue light indicates that the device is processing your request.

To be more specific, when processing a request, the blue light will remain solid, and a cyan-colored light will spin around the ring to indicate that Alexa has heard your request and is in the process of dealing with it.

If you ever see the spinning blue light when you haven’t requested Alexa, it may be because the smart speaker has misheard a word you’ve said and mistaken it for the wake word. If this happened, you could say ‘Alexa, stop’ to turn it off or wait for the light to turn off automatically after a few seconds.

You may also see the spinning blue light whenever your device is downloading an update or if it has recently been restarted and is in the process of booting up again.

Occasionally, your Echo device might decide to restart on its own accord, after which you’ll see the spinning blue ring light while it reboots. Once the device is back up and running, the blue light will turn off, and you will be able to communicate with Alexa once again.

How to Stop the Alexa Blue Light

Saying ‘Alexa, stop’, will stop the blue light from showing on your Echo device. If that doesn’t work, you could try unplugging the device from the wall socket, plugging it back in again, and then waiting while it reboots.


Alternatively, you could restart the Echo device by holding down the mute button and volume down button for 20 seconds.

Alexa Spinning White Light

If your echo device displays a spinning white light, it means you’ve enabled the Alexa Guard feature, and your device is in away mode.

Alexa Guard is a safety feature available on Echo devices that enables Alexa to protect your home while you are away.

It allows an Echo speaker to act as your personal security guard by telling it to listen out for noises such as smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, and breaking glass.

If the microphone picks up on any of the enabled ‘danger sounds’, Alexa will send a notification to your phone and play a 10-second clip of the noise.

If you have hooked your Alexa account up to smart lighting devices within your home, you can also authorize Alexa Guard to turn the lights on and off at specific times while you’re away to make it look like you are still at home.

How to Stop the White Light on Alexa

To stop the spinning white light on your Alexa device, you will need to deactivate Alexa Guard mode.

To turn it off using a simple voice command, you need to say, ‘Alexa, I’m home’ and the spinning white light will stop.

Alexa Red Ring

The solid red light on your Alexa device signifies that your Echo’s microphone and/or camera have been disabled.

To turn the microphone off, you need to press the ‘Microphone On/Off’ button on top of the device. There is another switch on the top that you need to slide on an Echo Show to turn the camera off.

The red light will be visible for the entire time while the microphone is off. During this time, you will not be able to communicate with your Alexa device using the wake word until you press the ‘Microphone On/Off’ button once more.

Alexa is a voice-activated device, which means your Echo will continuously scan the audio within the room to listen out for one of the wake words. Many people like to turn off the microphone feature whenever they don’t want Amazon listening to their conversations.

While the microphone is off, your Echo device will no longer be able to hear anything, and therefore it won’t upload up any data to Amazon’s servers.

The Alexa Red Ring Fix

Turning the microphone back on again will also turn off Alexa’s red ring light.

To do this, you need to manually press the ‘Microphone On/Off’ button again. As soon as the red light turns off, you will know that your Echo device’s microphone is working again.

Alexa Yellow Light

When your Echo device flashes a yellow light, it could either mean you have a new notification or message from one of your Alexa contacts.

One of the handy things about having an Echo device is that it can be linked to your Amazon account. The yellow light will slowly flash every few seconds to let you know you have one or more new notifications on your Amazon account.

When a new notification comes in, you will hear an alert tone that will play once, and the light will continue to slowly flash until you ask to listen to the notifications or messages.

The notification could be several things, such as a message from Amazon to let you know your order is out for delivery. It could even be Amazon asking you to review and rate a recent purchase you have made.

To hear what your notifications are, you need to ask Alexa ‘What notifications do I have?’ or ‘What messages do I have?’.

How to Turn off Amazon Shopping Notifications

In some situations, you may wish to turn off the Amazon shopping notifications. An example scenario could be if you have ordered a gift for someone in your family and don’t want Alexa to announce what you’ve ordered for them and ruin the surprise.

To stop Alexa from reading out the specific product titles, open the Alexa app and go to ‘More’.

Click on ‘Settings’, followed by ‘Notifications’ and then ‘Amazon Shopping’.

Here, toggle off ‘Say or show item titles’.

You can also turn off the out for delivery / delivered notifications, order updates, deals, and community notifications in the same menu.

How to Stop the Alexa Flashing Yellow Light

The easiest way to get rid of the yellow flashing light on your Alexa device is to ask ‘Alexa, read my messages’ or ‘Alexa, play notifications’.

Either of these requests will prompt Alexa to read your messages or tell you what your notifications are, and once she has finished, your Echo device will stop flashing yellow.

If you’d prefer Alexa not to read your messages or notifications aloud, you can also go on the Alexa app and read them there.

If you wish to turn off the flashing yellow notification light altogether, you can disable this type of notification by following the steps below:

Alexa Orange Light

When plugging in a brand new Echo speaker, the spinning orange light will signal that the device is in setup mode.

During the setup, you will see the spinning orange light appear when your Echo device attempts to pair with your WiFi network. Once it has established a connection, the orange light will disappear.

Suppose you see the orange spinning light after you’ve already set up your Alexa device. In that case, it could either mean it is having problems connecting to the WiFi network or attempting to re-establish a connection after losing the signal.

This could happen if you’ve recently changed your internet provider or if you have replaced your old router or modem.

Once the Echo speaker has re-established the connection, the orange light will disappear.

If the orange light is persistently spinning, it most likely means you need to re-enter your WiFi password on your Alexa app.

If the spinning orange light still hasn’t stopped, check your WiFi router is on and there is no evidence of an internet service outage. Often, internet routers experience connection errors after storms or extreme weather, so this could be the reason why your Echo speaker is persistently showing the spinning orange light.

It is also worth noting that Amazon Echo devices are only compatible with dual-band WiFi (2.4GHz/5GHz) networks that use the 802.11a/b/g/n standard. Most home WiFi networks will run on these bands, but most hotspots and peer-to-peer networks will not.

How to Stop the Alexa Orange Light

To fix a connectivity issue with your Alexa device and therefore stop the spinning orange light, you could try one of the following:

Alexa Green Light

A pulsing green light on an Alexa device indicates an incoming call. The green light will start spinning for the duration of a call or during an active drop-in.

What Is a Drop In?

Drop-in is a feature on all Alexa devices which allows approved contacts to instantly ‘drop-in’ on your Echo device, like an intercom.

The caller doesn’t have to wait for you to accept or reject the call; the Echo device will play a short alert notification before automatically connecting the call.

To avoid getting unwanted calls from specific people, you can manage which of your contacts get drop-in privileges in the settings within the Alexa app.

How to Turn Off the Green Light on Alexa

To stop the pulsing green light on your Alexa device, you will need to accept or reject the call.

If you would like to accept the incoming call, say ‘Answer’.

If you’re too busy to talk or don’t want to speak to the caller, you can ignore the call by saying nothing or saying ‘Hang up’ or ‘Drop’.

The device will continue to ring and flash green ten times before it stops.

When you end the call or drop in by saying ‘Hang up’ at any point during the call, the spinning green light on your Alexa device will turn off.

Like all of Alexa’s flashing and ring lights displayed on your Echo device, the green light is a practical feature that makes interacting with your device even more effortless.

Should you wish to turn off the green light alert altogether, you would need to disable the calling and dropping-in functions on your Echo device by following the steps below:

Alexa Purple Light

If you make a voice request to your Echo device and see a single pulse of purple light, Alexa is reminding you that the Do Not Disturb feature is still activated.

Do Not Disturb mode turns off all incoming notifications, including calls, messages, and drop-ins. It’s a helpful feature if you’re working from home or are trying to focus on a task and don’t want to worry about Alexa interrupting you.

You can turn Do Not Disturb on and off whenever you like by saying to your Echo device, ‘Alexa, turn on/off Do Not Disturb mode’ or via the Alexa app. Alternatively, you can schedule it to go into Do Not Disturb mode during certain times of the day, for example, during working hours.

When you activate Do Not Disturb mode, your Echo device will show a spinning blue light followed by a single pulse of the purple light. Every time you interact with the device while still in Do Not Disturb mode, it will glow purple again to remind you.

You can still communicate with your Amazon Echo via voice commands while in Do Not Disturb mode.

Another instance where you may see the purple light is if your Alexa device has failed to connect to the WiFi network during setup mode. If the purple light pulses continuously, this indicates the device has found an issue with the WiFi network you are attempting to connect to, and you need to resolve it.

The connectivity issue could be anything from an incorrect WiFi password to a problem with your router.

How to Stop the Purple Light on Alexa

You can turn Do Not Disturb mode on or off via the Alexa app or by directly asking your Echo device.

To activate or deactivate the Do Not Disturb feature on the Alexa app, follow the steps below:

Once you have turned off Do Not Disturb mode, the purple light will no longer show when you communicate with your Alexa device.

To stop the continuous pulsing purple light which appears when there is an issue with the WiFi connection, follow the steps below:

How to Turn off Echo Dot Light Ring

The Amazon Echo Dot has seven different colored lights that come on to notify you of a specific event or status.

Each light acts as a quick and easy way of Alexa visually communicating with you, whether to tell you about an update with your Amazon Shopping order or notify you that you have an incoming call.

If you are wondering if there is a way to turn off the light ring function altogether, the simple answer is no.

Alexa uses the light ring as a primary avenue of communication with the user, with this design intended to make the user experience easier and more practical.

If you wanted to turn off notifications for a certain amount of time, you could enable Do Not Disturb mode to block any incoming alerts that would cause your Echo Dot to light up. It’s worth noting, however, that this is not a permanent solution and will only block certain light ring notifications.

In Summary

In this article, we have established what each of Alexa’s lights means and how you would go about disabling a specific light notification altogether (where possible), as well as how to turn it off or cancel it.

If reading through the entire article seems too much like hard work, you can find out what Alexa’s specific colored light means by asking ‘Alexa, what does your light mean?’, and she will tell you.

In most cases, the spinning or pulsing lights aren’t anything to be concerned about because they are Alexa’s way of telling you specific information.

The main light you need to be concerned about is the pulsing purple one because this indicates there is an issue connecting with your WiFi network.

Your Echo device essentially becomes useless without an internet connection, so it’s essential to take action when you see the pulsing purple light and fix your connectivity issues.