Alexa Glitch Hits Amazon Users a Week After Web Services Outage

Amazon’s acknowledgment of a glitch with the Alexa voice assistant Tuesday night into Wednesday was far less detailed than social media comments chronicling the snafu. We first noticed the brownout when we summoned Alexa for the weather forecast; while our Echo lit up to indicate it was listening, Alexa didn’t respond to requests for the weather, a joke or the news. Far more connected Alexa users lost control of lights and more, we found from social media posts. Twitter user Kunai Bajaj wondered if the Alexa outage was related to the Amazon Web Services disruption last week. Facebook user Howie Cooperstein blamed a failed software update for “connected but useless” Alexa Echo devices. A friend weighed in saying his Echo speaker wouldn’t control the lights but did play music. Twitter user AndrewChoy thought the outage might be a political statement and said: “Ok @amazon, supporting #adaywithoutwomen is noble but taking Alexa offline is a bit much." Many Alexa users took the hitch in stride. Said Twitter user Andrew Lee: “Fine, I'll turn off the lights myself." In response to our questions on what happened, what caused the flameout and how many devices were affected, an Amazon spokeswoman only emailed us: "Yesterday evening we had an issue that impacted some Alexa customers’ ability to interact with the service. The Alexa service is now operating normally.”