Amazon Alexa Echo Green Light: What Does it Mean? How to Stop it?

Alexa gives many ways to stay in touch with loved ones through your Echo speaker or screen. It uses different Amazon Echo light colors like red, blue, and teal.

An incoming call is indicated by a radiant green circle, while a spinning green emblem demonstrates that you're either on a call or starting a drop-in talk with another person, with the purple line and white light as other light pulsing signals.

The green notification is regularly mistaken for the yellow light ring, which signifies that you have a new notification or message indicated by the indicator light or the light red LED ring.

Check out our yellow light ring article, for how to manage these notifications and dismiss the yellow light among other status lights and flashing lights.

How can Alexa receive calls?

There are a number of ways your Echo speaker or display can receive calls. 

• “Alexa-to-Alexa Contact” allows people with Echo devices to call other people with Echo devices.
• If you’ve hooked up your mobile phone account (AT&T, Verizon, EE, Vodafone currently supported) to your Alexa profile, you can receive mobile phone calls on your Echo devices.
• If Skype is configured in your Alexa App, you can receive these calls via your Echo speaker also.

What is a Drop-In?

The Drop-In feature acts like a digital intercom and allows you to communicate with other Echo devices in your home.

For Echo and Echo Dot speakers, this acts like an automatically answered audio call while for the Echo Show, it acts like an instant video call.

To start a Drop-In you simply say:

• “Alexa, Drop In on [Echo device name]”

Or you can Drop-In from the Alexa app to your Echo speakers or displays if you are away from home.

You can also Drop-In on friends or family in other homes, if they have provided you with “Drop-In” permission. This is great if, for example, you are caring for an elderly relative and need to check in on them regularly.

Say to your Echo device:

• “Alexa, Drop In on [friend's name].”

This feature is configured on a contact-by-contact basis as you can see below:

What Does it Mean When Alexa Flashing Green Ring?

If you see a pulsing green light on your Echo speaker, it means you are receiving a call. Alexa usually informs you who is calling.

You can then say

• “Alexa, Answer”
• “Alexa, Ignore Call”

By saying “Answer”, you will be connected with the caller. Echo devices with a screen will also display the name of the caller.

You can also ignore it by saying nothing. Your Echo will stop pulsing right after the person stops calling. Both ways work fine and will turn off the pulsing green light on your Echo, reverting the LED light ring back to its default state among the various indicator lights

The other variation is the spinning green ring which shows when you are on an active call or someone has “dropped in” on you, indicated by conversation colors, light ring colors, light blue, and ensuring Alexa privacy.

You will see the green spinning light for as long as you are on that call. As soon as you or the other person hangs up, the green light will disappear, reverting back to the default Amazon Echo light colors.

To end the call or drop in, simply say:

• “Alexa, Hang up.” 

How to Fully Disable the Amazon Echo Alexa Green Ring?

If you don't want your Echo speaker to display the green light at all, and would rather disconnect Alexa from calls and Drop-Ins, follow the below steps.

The difference between an Alexa Call and a Drop-In

It’s possible to communicate with the Echo devices of family and friends through the Alexa Call or Drop-In feature.

The main difference between these methods is that you can reject an incoming call if it doesn’t suit, whereas you cannot reject a drop-in. A drop-in opens an instant conversation between the two Echo devices, like an intercom.

Drop-In is highly controlled and permissions must be granted on a contact-by-contact basis. This makes sense as it has the potential to be very intrusive. For that reason, it probably makes the most sense to only allow Drop-in for close family. I know that personally, I  wouldn’t want my friends listening in on my conversations or watching me through my Echo Show camera! 

FAQ:

Why is the Amazon Echo's light green?

The green light on your Amazon Echo indicates that you have an incoming call or drop-in. When you see a spinning or pulsing green light, it means someone is trying to reach you via Alexa's calling or drop-in feature.

What happens to the green light when you are on an active call?

When you are on an active call, the green light will remain solid on your Echo device. This signifies that the call is currently in progress.

Where does the green light appear on an Echo speaker with a screen?

On Echo devices with a screen, such as the Echo Show, the green light typically appears as a green bar or indicator at the bottom or top edge of the display, depending on the model. This light serves the same purpose of indicating incoming calls or active calls.

What does the Echo's green ring look like?

The Echo's green ring looks like a spinning or pulsing green light around the top edge of the device. When a call is active, the green light becomes solid. This visual indicator helps users identify the call status at a glance.

Conclusion

To get rid of the green light, if you’ve said “Alexa, Ignore Call” and “Alexa, Hang Up” and the light is still spinning, then it’s possible that it's more of a Yellow Ring than a Green one! In that case, say “Alexa, Clear Notifications.” Check out our other article which explains more about this.

Also, it may be possible that Alexa misheard something you said, and accidentally started a call or drop-in on someone else. While “Alexa, Hang Up” should solve this, you can review your voice history on the Alexa app to see if this is what happened.

Let us know what worked for you in the comments below!

Sources

https://www.amazon.com/

https://techcrunch.com/