Smart home guides
Voice assistants, smart lighting and plugs — setup failures, devices going offline, and hubs that stop responding.
3 guides
Alexa not responding
Fix an Echo that won’t answer: the light ring is a documented code. Red means the microphone is off, orange means it can’t reach the network, purple means Do Not Disturb, and a normal blue ring means the fault is somewhere else entirely.
Hue light unreachable
Fix Hue lights showing as unreachable: all of them means the Bridge, and its three status lights say which part failed. One or a few means a wall switch or Zigbee range — and every powered bulb is a repeater, so one switch can strand others.
Smart plug won’t connect
Fix a smart plug that won’t finish setup: the status LED shows whether it is in config mode at all. After that it is the 2.4 GHz band — these devices have no 5 GHz radio, and band steering hands them to one they cannot use.