Echo Show Not Responding to Voice Commands: 8 Quick Fixes

There’s nothing more frustrating than a smart home speaker that won’t respond to commands. That’s especially true for the Echo Show since it’s often the primary hub in your living area or controlling timers in your kitchen.

In this article, you’ll learn what to do when Echo Show is not responding to voice commands, whether it’s because of a settings issue, a random glitch, or a network failure.

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1. Unmute Your Echo Show

Alexa won’t listen to voice commands when its microphone is muted. You can tell when your Echo Show is muted because there will be a red bar across the bottom of the screen. That’s the Echo Show equivalent of the Alexa Red Ring.

You can unmute your Echo Show by pressing the button with the icon of a circle with a line through it. It’s on the top of the Echo Show right next to the volume down and volume up buttons.

Once you unmute your Echo, it will start responding to your commands immediately. But if it wasn’t muted, we’ll have to try a few more fixes.

2. Power Cycle Your Echo Show

This fix is incredibly quick and easy, and there’s no downside to trying it. As with any electronic, sometimes Alexa has random glitches and needs to be rebooted. The easiest way to do that is by unplugging it and plugging it back in.

1. Unplug your Echo Show.
2. Wait 10 seconds.
3. Plug it back in.

Once Echo reboots, try a voice command again.

3. Check Your Internet Connection

Most Echo devices require an active internet connection to process voice commands, including the Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 8. You should hear an error message when you try talking to them while they’re offline, but let’s check your connection, just in case.

Try connecting to the internet using another device on your same Wi-Fi network. A desktop, laptop, or tablet computer is easiest. You can use a smartphone, but you’ll need to turn off mobile data to make sure the phone is using Wi-Fi only.

If your internet isn’t working, go ahead and restart your router, as mentioned in the next fix. You may also need to contact your internet provider in case there is an outage in your area.

4. Restart Your Router

Make sure no one else is on your home network first, as this will shut off your internet for as much as five minutes.

1. Unplug your router and modem. If they have batteries, remove those, too.
2. Wait 30 seconds.
3. Plug them both back in.
4. Wait up to five minutes for your Wi-Fi connection to come back online.

Test your internet connection again to make sure it’s working. If not, contact your internet provider, as the problem may not be local to your network. If your internet is working, but your Echo Show still won’t respond, we’ll try a few more solutions next.

5. Look At Alexa’s Voice History

The Alexa app keeps a history of every voice command your devices have heard. You can check these records to determine whether your Echo heard you at all and whether it understood you correctly.

To check your history:

1. Open the Alexa app.
2. Navigate to More -> Activity -> Voice History.
3. If you have multiple Alexa devices, use the dropdown by Displaying to limit the history to only the Echo Show you are having problems with.

If you don’t see any commands at all, you’ll have to try other fixes below. However, when your Echo doesn’t understand you properly, it sometimes just ignores the command altogether.

6. Change Alexa’s Wake Word

When you have multiple Alexa devices, they can get confused. Your best bet, in that case, is to ensure that each device has its own unique wake word.

There are a total of five wake words currently available. If you have more than four devices, just make sure that each device has a different wake word than its nearest neighbors.

To change the wake word:

1. Open the Alexa app.
2. Go to Devices -> Echo & Alexa.
3. Select your device from the list.
4. Press the gear icon in the top right to open Settings.
5. Click Wake Word.
6. Select whichever wake word you want to use.

7. Factory Reset Your Echo Show

To reset an Echo Show, you need to use the touchscreen. Here’s the process:

1. Swipe down from the top of the screen to bring up the menu bar.
2. Press Settings in the menu bar.
3. Scroll down in the Settings menu until you see Device Options. Press that item.
4. Scroll through the Device Options menu until you see Reset to Factory Defaults. Press that to reach the confirmation page.
5. Press Reset to finish resetting your Amazon Echo Show. This is the last confirmation step, so make sure that you understand the impact before you click.
6. Wait for your Echo Show to reset. This process will take 2–3 minutes, during which time the device will restart.

8. Contact Amazon Support

That’s everything you can try by yourself. If none of those worked, your final action should be to turn to tech support. The Alexa app has an easy way to get in touch with them.

You can find it under More -> Help & Feedback. The Speak with a representative link will give you an option to receive a call immediately from Amazon support. And they do mean immediately.

Support will likely walk you through some of the same steps we tried above. There’s no harm in repeating these steps, so just follow their instructions. They have access to some device diagnostics and logs that you and I can’t access, so it’s best to just let them take the lead.

What’s Next?

The Echo Show can take some getting used to. Its commands are unique, and the Echo Show has no action button. Some of the standard practices for dealing with an Alexa device that won’t respond just don’t work with the Show.

Once that problem is fixed, your Echo Show will become one of the most valuable pieces of your smart home setup. It’s the core of a reasonably priced Alexa setup, and it’s the perfect way to issue Roomba voice commands or control Alexa-compatible WiZ lights.