You just set up your Amazon Echo and then you notice that the ring around the top is doing this flashing yellow thing. What’s up with that? This is why your Echo can flash yellow, red, green, or blue.
Echo uses flashing colors to alert you to different things, depending on the color. Since regular Echos and Echo Dots don’t have a screen, this is the only way they can visually let you know something is happening, otherwise Alexa will just keep yelling at you until you get annoyed and it just won’t work.
Each echo device has slightly different light positions
Regular Echo and Echo Dot are the same device, but different sizes. They both have a distinctive colored ring around the top of the device. Then there’s the Echo Look, Tap, Show, Plus, and Spot — and they’re all completely different devices in different form factors.
The one thing they all have in common (not to mention talking to Alex) is that they all have colored LEDs to help you figure out what’s going on. Look has a mini ring around the camera, Show has a colored LED strip below the screen, Spot has a colored ring around the screen, and Tap has 5 LEDs that light up in different colors. The colors you see (and what those colors mean) are the same on all devices.
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If your echo is flashing or flashing blue: it is listening to you
By default, your echo will not flicker, pulse, or flash, but just sit and wait for you to talk to it. There’s a tiny power indicator on the back, but that’s the only way to know if it’s on just by looking at it.
When you speak to Alexa, the ring of light wakes up and turns blue. If you watch this happen, you’ll see a blue ring complete the circle, and then light blue appears on one segment: this lighter segment is pointing in the direction you’re speaking from. When you’re done asking a question, the blue light rotates while Alexa thinks about what you said and prepares her answer.
If your echo flashes green: You have a call
If your echo is flashing or pulsing green, one of your contacts has called you.
