Why Is Alexa Down?
Why has Alexa gone down? – Amazon is yet to respond to the outage, so the reason for Alexa going down is currently unknown. Users are reporting a variety of problems, including devices showing as “offline”, a red light ring instead of the usual blue, receiving replies such as “I’m having difficulty understanding right now” and “‘something has gone wrong”, taking a long time to respond to requests and being unresponsive entirely.
Some users have reported being unable to switch off their alarms due to their Alexa not processing their request. The outage is a significant problem for households which use Alexa to control their lighting, front door locks and more. One customer, Phil Sandford, wrote on Twitter: “All my Alexa and Echo devices are offline, showing red and telling me “hmmm, I’m having difficulty understanding right now” – seems others are having same issue.
What’s going on?” Colin Purves commented on Down Detector: “All my six devices in Lanarkshire have been down for at least an hour. No music in the kitchen this morning! “Surprised this can happen with Amazon, who resell their web server services to other large businesses.
Why is Alexa having trouble right now?
FAQs – What does the “having trouble understanding right now” error mean? Alexa runs in the cloud, so this error means that there’s a problem with the Alexa device connecting to the cloud servers, either at your end or with Amazon.
Is Amazon Alexa down at the moment?
Alexa.com is UP and reachable by us.
Is Alexa out of service?
The headlines for Alexa have been dire of late, with word of massive layoffs in Amazon’s Alexa division and chatter that the Alexa group is hemorrhaging cash, In another development from earlier this year, Amazon shuttered Alexa.com, with Amazon saying prior to the shutdown that it was a “difficult” decision.
So what does that mean for Alexa? Well, no matter the financial tribulations that Alexa appears to be facing, the truth is that Alexa.com the website had nothing to do with Alexa the voice assistant. Founded back in 1996, just a few years after the birth of the World Wide Web, Alexa Internet was a service that tracked and compared the traffic of websites, gathering browsing data from the Alexa Toolbar (subsequently replaced by browser extensions) as well as sites that had installed the Alexa script on their pages.
Amazon snapped up Alexa Internet and the Alexa.com domain back in 1999, a full 15 years before Alexa the voice assistant made her first appearance. Back in the day, a site’s Alexa traffic ranking was a big deal. Not only could website owners stack their properties up against competitors, they could also raise their advertising rates if their rankings were high enough.
The Alexa Toolbar was also a popular helper app for browsers that, among other tools, included a then-novel popup blocker. But times change, and Alexa Internet eventually found itself in an increasingly competitive field. While there were once plenty of loyal Alexa.com users around, Amazon clearly felt that the cost of keeping the site operational was no longer worth the expense.
The e-commerce giant announced its intention to close down Alexa.com in December 2021, and the service finally went dark on May 1, 2022. So yes, Amazon owns both Alexa the Internet site and, you know, Alexa, but the two entities are otherwise unrelated, and Amazon’s decision to shut down Alexa.com had nothing to do with Alexa’s current predicament.
If you do want to visit Alexa (the digital assistant) on the web, you can still go to alexa.amazon.com, On that webpage, you can perform many of the Alexa-related functions that appear on the Alexa app, including adjusting Alexa preferences, setting alarms and reminders, managing skills and connected smart home devices, and more.
Updated on November 23, 2022 with recent news developments.
Why is Alexa not responding tonight?
Are you having trouble using Alexa? Is Alexa not responding to your commands? There are various reasons these issues occur. It’s possible the virtual assistant has issues recognizing your commands, there’s an issue with your internet connection, or there’s a minor glitch on your Amazon Alexa-enabled device.
Is Alexa being hacked?
Can Alexa Be Hacked? – If a hacker can gain access to your home’s Wi-Fi network, they can access to anything connected to it. However, we haven’t found any reports of an Alexa device being hacked by someone with nefarious intentions. Over the years, researchers have hacked Alexa to find vulnerabilities bad actors could exploit.
- In 2020 the cybersecurity company firm Check Point discovered one that would allow hackers to install Alexa with malware capable of stealing your personal information.
- Soon after, Amazon fixed the problem.
- Earlier this year, researchers from London’s Royal Holloway University and the University of Catania in Italy found a weakness they dubbed ” Alexa versus Alexa,” In this case, researchers gained access by getting Alexa devices to say malicious commands to themselves.
Thankfully, hackers can’t do this without installing malware first. So if you take precautions, there’s not much worry about this one. While not exactly hacking, there are instances of someone stealing an Alexa device to find out information about the owner, or Alexa telling people to do weird stuff,
Can someone tap into your Alexa?
Is It Possible To Hack Alexa To Listen In On Conversations? – Yes, hackers can hack into your Alexa device and gain access to personal data and listen in on previously recorded or live conversations. These hacks are widely known, leaving users vulnerable to a hack by a malicious individual.
- There are a few common ways Alexa can be hacked to listen in on your pre-recorded or live conversations with the interactive device.
- Sending the user a fake link that, when clicked, grants the hacker access to the user’s voice history in the Alexa app is a common and simple method of voice history hacking.
The hacker can use your audio files to create sophisticated audio forgeries and even trick audio verification systems. The Alexa Echo and other smart devices are designed and programmed to pick up sounds that are undetectable to human ears. By using hardware with frequencies that would enable them to cause some commotion around your device, hackers might be able to command your Alexa device to perform any task.
Can someone else control my Alexa?
Enable Guest Connect – Now it’s time to enable Guest Connect. Open More > Settings > Your Profile & Family in the Alexa app. Tap your name, then select Guest Connect, Tap Continue, then Next, and the process is complete. Anyone who wishes to connect to your Echo device would need to follow the same steps to set up Voice ID and activate Guest Connect. To allow people to connect to your own Echo, you must turn on Guest Connect for the device. Do this from More > Settings > Account Settings > Guest Connect in the app. At the Guest Connect screen, turn on Allow Guests to connect, Anyone who wants to allow others to connect to their own Echo would need to do the same on their end.
What to do if Alexa says server is unresponsive?
To resolve most issues with connectivity or setup, unplug the power adapter from your Echo device and then plug it back in. Make sure that your Echo device is compatible with your Alexa Gadget.