Amazon’s Echo device is powered by an AI called Alexa. Unfortunately, thousands of people unwrapping new smart speakers on the biggest gift-giving day of the year will have been left disappointed by a service outage, which meant Alexa wouldn’t respond to your commands. New customers flocked to social media to report that the AI wasn’t listening, leaving many without the music or games they’d hoped for.
Outage leaves customers without voice assistant
Due to the overwhelming popularity of Amazon’s newest generation of smart speakers, the wait for some products has extended up to 2 months in some areas. So needless to say that some customers were left less than impressed after waiting 2 months only to have the outage land on Christmas Day. Amazon responded to some customer complaints on Twitter, explaining that the technical issues were being investigated and would be resolved within 12 to 24 hours. Indeed, it does now appear that Alexa is back up and running after enjoying her Christmas time off.
Though it’s unclear what exactly caused Alexa’s problems, our money is on the obvious influx of new Echo users on Christmas Day. Technical issues began early on the 25th December, peaking at around 10am, which would be when millions of people began to open their presents and set up their new devices.
Why buy an Amazon Echo device?
Alexa can speak in and understand a range of different languages, and has over 70,000 different skills and abilities, from games and trivia, through to home automation. The assistant can also be used to stream music from your favourite music service. Some smaller variations of the smart speaker can even entertain the kids, offering tailored, safe responses for younger users, as well as a range of interactive games.
Though it might seem like Alexa’s sales would be slowing down, given how long the device has been on-sale, it doesn’t appear to be showing any signs of waning popularity. Amazon recently confirmed that the number of people using Alexa every day doubled this year alone. The same applied to the number of people who owned more than one device in the Echo range.
Everything back to normal
This wasn’t the first outage that we’ve seen of the Alexa service in recent months, and it probably won’t be the last. There will always be teething troubles with a service providing such a high level of support for millions of people and devices across the world. But the good news is that if you’ve been having trouble with your new Echo device, it’s probably not the hardware that’s the problem. Before you go running for the warranty information, give Alexa another try this morning and check that everything’s working.
Alternatively, if you haven’t even begun to set your smart speaker up yet, then it might be worth dropping us a comment below, or getting in touch with WiseGuys on 0808 123 2820. There are loads of ways to integrate your speaker with your mobile phone, giving you remote access to control over lights, heating and security systems.
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