Alexa Says "Your Hue Lights Are Not Responding." What Do I Do?

 

Last week, I was working away when dusk began to fall. So I asked Alexa to "Turn on Star," and she responded "Your Hue Lights are not responding."  I asked again, to no avail.  Next, I reached for my smartphone, opened the Hue App, and turned on my light that way.  When the light successfully came on, I asked Alexa to turn it off. She again told me "Your Hue Lights are not responding(Alexa not responding)." My Hue and my Echo had stopped communicating with each other.

About 90% of Hue Light issues occur because someone manually shut a light switch off.  So if you ask Alexa to turn on a light, and she responds "Okay" but the light does not come on, try manually switching it on and off until the light illuminates.  Sometimes, manually cycling the light is the only thing you need to do to restore voice control.

 However, Star is a hanging lamp, with the on/off switch physically located behind a heavy piece of furniture. My whole reason for using a Hue Bulb in Star is because the manual switch is almost impossible to reach. So I knew "user error" was not the problem here. It was time to troubleshoot. Was just Star malfunctioning, or was it ALL my Hue Lights?

 I tried to turn on "Bertha," another Hue-equipped lamp. Alexa again told me my Hue Lights were not responding. This helped me determine it was not an issue with a single bulb, but rather with Alexa recognizing my Hue System as a whole.

 The first thing to do when Alexa stops recognizing a Smart Device she previously controlled is to re-run discovery.  The easiest way to do this is by saying "Alexa, discover my devices."  This simple action may restore Alexa control to your Smart Device.  And of course, rebooting your Router and the connected Hue Hub is always the next thing to try.  Most of the time, this will restore Alexa control to your Hue Lights.

 This did not work when it came to Star though.  So the next step in troubleshooting was to open the Alexa app.  Often, toggling a Smart Device on and off using the app is enough to restore Alexa voice control.    Unfortunately, I needed to go a step further this time.

Next, I opened the skills section of the Alexa app.  I tapped on the "Your Skills" link in the upper right corner to bring up a list of my skills.  I entered "Hue" in the search box to avoid having to scroll through all of my activated skills, then tapped on "Hue."  Then I tapped on settings.  I checked to see if my account was still linked.  Then I tapped on "Manage Smart Home Devices," and it brought me to my "Smart Home Devices" tab.  I tapped on "Star," and saw Alexa app control had been restored.  I then tried toggling the lamp on and off via voice, and it worked. Next, I told Alexa to turn on Bertha.  Voice control was working again with all my Hue Bulbs.

If you go through these steps, but still are having Alexa Spotify control issues, you will need to try disabling and re-enabling the associated skill.  Go to the "Skills" section of the Alexa app. Tap on "My Skills," search for Hue, tap it, then tap "Disable Skill."  Close the app. Reopen the Alexa app, go back to skills, bring up the Hue Skill, and tap on "Enable Skill." You will need to relink Alexa with your Hue Account.  Then, re-run Device Discovery.

When it comes to Hue Lights, Alexa should beable to control them all, or she should be able to control none.  So if Alexa fails to turn on a single light via voice, try asking her to turn on a different Hue Light.  If she can turn on others, that indicates an issue with the specific Hue Bulb itself.  

If Alexa is only having issues with a single bulb, try toggling Alexa control on and off. To do so, go to the "Smart Home" section of the Alexa app. Find the bulb that is not responding and tap on its name.  Next, tap on "Edit."  You will see a slider at the bottom of this screen. It should read "Enabled." Tap the slider until it turns off and shows "Disabled." Tap it again to re-enable.  This may fix the connectivity issues with that single bulb.

Of course, you need to keep your Hue App up to date.  When Hue updates its app, it will also update the software for the individual bulbs.  If you open the Hue App and find it is not controlling your bulbs either, go to the Settings section (gear icon) and tap on Software Update. Updating your Hue software can fix connectivity issues with the Hue App. as well as with Alexa control.

If you've updated your Hue App and you are still having issues with that bulb, try deleting the bulb from within the Hue App, and then re-adding it.  Then re-run discovery on Alexa.  If nothing works, it may indicate you have an issue with that specific bulb.  If the bulb is still under warranty, contact Phillips.