When you buy, and use for the first time an Amazon Echo device, one of the things you will notice first is your Amazon Echo light ring taking different colors in different situations.

The colors on your Echo light ring are the only way your Echo device has to communicate with you since Alexa cannot speak unless asked to.

The meaning of each color on your Amazon Echo light ring

Each one of the colors your echo light ring gets lighted with has a different meaning. Here is a list of all the colors and their meaning:

Yellow: when your Echo starts pulsing a yellow light it’s because of a reminder you missed, or that you have a message or notification waiting for you.

Red: The microphone is turned off or the camera in case of an Echo Show device. Also, when there is a device error like Alexa is unavailable or Wi-Fi connectivity issues.

Orange: Your Echo device has entered setup mode or attempting to connect to the Wi-Fi.

Purple: An error encountered during the Wi-Fi setup or the Do Not Disturb mode is on.

Green: Pulsing light for incoming calls on your device. The spinning green light is when you are on an active call or an active Drop-In.

Teal spotlight on a blue ring: Alexa is listening or processing your request.

Spinning teal and blue:  Your Echo device is starting up.

White: When the light is steady the volume of that device is adjusting, instead, when it is spinning Alexa Guard is on and in Away mode.

These are all the colors the light ring emits to show different things. It will take a little to learn them since most of them you will see just a few times.

How to turn off the Echo light ring?

There are moments when you want to completely turn off the echo light ring. For example, when you are working and need to concentrate, or when you go to sleep. Especially at night when you go to sleep, you would really appreciate not waking up at 2:00 AM because of a random notification turning on the light ring.

There are two ways you can nearly turn them off.

The first one is to enable the “Do Not Disturb” mode. This mode will stop all notifications for as long as you need.

The second and easiest one is to interact with Alexa and your Echo device. For example, when you see the yellow color, just ask “Alexa, read my messages” or “Alexa, show me the notifications” and the color will go away. For the red color, just unmute the microphones, and it will go away.