Amazon Alexa was down: outage affecting security systems and more

Amazon's Alexa voice assistant suffered an outage today. Starting around 11:30 a.m. Pacific, more than 2,000 reports suddenly hit the outage tracking site DownDetector.

We also saw reports on Reddit with users asking if Alexa is down. My colleagues found delays in Alexa reporting announcements with Ring systems and the Alexa speakers weren't connecting. Some users on Reddit reported that newer Alexa devices were working but that older speakers were the main ones affected.

Sudden spike on Down Detector

Starting around 11:30 am Pacific, a sudden spike of over 2,000 reports suddenly hit the outage tracking site on Down Detector.

Most users just reported it was down but a couple said that their Amazon speakers weren't working.

"No response to voice commands, lots of blue lights. affecting all 3 of my smart speakers," one person wrote.

Relay between Ring and Alexa is down

My colleague John Velasco confirmed that he is getting a delay on announcements from his Ring cameras to Alexa.

"My Alexa speakers don't announce people when my Ring cameras detect them," he said.

He had a minute delay he said.

Reports dive but Alexa.com is down

On DownDetector reports have taken a nose dive with people reporting things back up.

However, I've found that Alexa.com is currently inaccessible. Is it down for you?

Multiple reports on Alexa subreddit

On the Alexa subreddit, I've seen multiple reports from Alexa users saying that the platform is down.

"My Alexa platform is unresponsive and the app interface isn't working on either my iPhone or iPad. I have performed basic troubleshooting (cold boot device and iPhone) but still unresponsive. I can ask Alexa to turn on the lights and the device lights indicate that it hears me but does not perform the task. I can also ask about the weather. Same result. Light on device acknowledging being spoken to but nothing is done. is anyone," said one post.

I have seen some people saying that the outage is only affecting their older devices but not the newer ones.

A blip

Well, it appears the outage is over. Lasting just about an hour, it's not clear what caused the Alexa platform to glitch today.

However, reports on DownDetector are at nearly zero and the systems we have access to have started to receive normal announcements.