Smart home guides
Voice assistants, smart lighting and plugs — setup failures, devices going offline, and hubs that stop responding.
18 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.
Google Home not responding
Fix a Google speaker that ignores you: the LED dots respond to the hotword, so lights or no lights splits the problem. Covers the physical microphone switch, hotword sensitivity, and requests that fail downstream.
Hue bulb not connecting
Fix a new Hue bulb the app cannot find: the six-digit serial number route succeeds where the automatic search fails. Covers bulbs still paired to another Bridge, and why pairing range is shorter than working range.
Alexa / Echo Wi-Fi trouble
Compare another device on the same network before resetting Echo. A changed password needs a Wi-Fi update; an Echo speaker and an Echo with a screen use different settings routes.
Alexa not playing music
Compare one Echo with the speaker group, then check the chosen music service and account link. Buffering needs the Wi-Fi route; unreachable group members need matching account, network and software checks.
Roomba error 2
Error 2 is the brush error on every Roomba generation: the main brushes or multi-surface rubber brushes cannot spin. It is almost always hair or debris wound around the brush ends rather than a fault.
Roomba error 5
Error 5 reports a jammed side wheel. On the 600 series it means a side wheel is stuck; on the i Series it names the right wheel specifically, with error 4 covering the left.
Roomba error 6
Error 6 means the cliff sensors are reporting a drop. Dusty sensors and dark flooring produce it just as reliably as a real stair edge, which is why it appears in the middle of a clear floor.
Roomba error 9
Error 9 means the robot thinks it is permanently bumping into something. iRobot attributes it to a bumper that is compressed, jammed with debris or dislodged, rather than to an obstacle in the room.
Roomba error 14
Error 14 means the robot cannot detect an installed bin. On the i Series iRobot adds two specifics worth knowing: the filter has to be in the bin, and there is a bin detect switch that can fail.
Roomba error 26
Error 26 is a vacuum stall with a possible filter clog. It belongs to a family of five vacuum errors on the i Series — 8, 11, 26, 27 and 30 — that all say “Vacuum problem” but mean different stages of the same airflow path.
Roomba error 17
Error 17 means the robot entered an unknown area, got lost while cleaning and could not return to the Home Base. It heads a family of navigation and docking errors — 17, 18, 19, 41 and 99 — that are about the room rather than the robot.
Roomba charging error
iRobot publishes one charging error chart for every Roomba and Braava model, and it is built around a simple idea: charging needs the battery, the robot and the dock all working, and the number tells you which one is at fault.
Hue Bridge not connecting
Fix a Hue Bridge that will not connect: Philips states it does not connect to Wi-Fi and must be hardwired to the router. The three lights say which stage failed, and a dark third light means it needs a software update.
Google Home not playing music
Fix a Google speaker that plays the wrong music or none: free tiers only play a radio station rather than the song you asked for, and an unset default provider explains most of the rest.
Google Home won’t connect to Wi-Fi
Fix a Google speaker that will not join Wi-Fi: Google names public, business, shared apartment, school and hotspot networks as ones you might not be able to use at all. Covers distance, case-sensitive passwords and dual-band routers.