You may wish to reboot Amazon Echo Gen 2 Dot speaker if it behaves strangely, becomes non responsive to questions and commands, emits unusual sounds, and so on.
However, before attempting any extensive troubleshooting, always try a speaker reboot first. This often clears up many problems such as Wi-Fi connectivity issues. Plus, trying a reboot initially avoids the potentially unnecessary action of hard resetting your speaker, in which all your speaker’s settings are erased.
Reboot Echo Dot 2 Method One: The Local Method
If you’re near to your Amazon Echo Dot speaker, you can just disconnect it from AC power, wait ten seconds, and then power it back up again. The unit will complete rebooting in less than a minute. Rebooting is complete when the light ring goes completely out.
In the case of the Echo Tap speaker, we suggest unplugging it from AC power, and allowing its internal battery to run down to completely dead (dead when the unit powers down). After that, wait a few minutes, and then reconnect the AC power source.
Reboot Echo Dot 2 Method Two: The Remote Method… NOT YET!
However, if you’re far away from your Echo Dot, such as upstairs from it, or even away from home, it would be nice to be able to issue a reboot command via the Alexa app on your mobile device. However currently, remote Alexa device rebooting is not possible. We’re hoping they add this capability to the Alexa app in the near future. When they do add remote rebooting, we expect that the feature will work something like described in the following steps.
This method will likely depend on you having the Alexa app installed and linked to the same Amazon account to which your Echo speaker device is linked. If all of that is in place, then you would do the following, to effect a remote restart of your speaker.
1. Run the Amazon Alexa app on your Mobile Device
We’re using an iPad Air computer tablet in this scenario. The Alexa app is located on page three of our iPad’s home screen, although yours may appear in a different location, depending on how many apps you have installed as well as how you might have arranged them.
Upon running this app, the Google home screen appears, as follows.
2. Tap the Settings Menu Control to Continue with Echo Dot 2 Reboot
Find this control in the black and white menu area on the left side of the Home screen, as pointed at in the previous picture by the pink arrow. This brings up the Settings screen as shown next.
3. Tap the Entry for the Echo speaker you Wish to Reboot
Find this entry under the Alexa Devices heading. This brings up the Settings screen specific to the device you’ve selected for reboot, as shown next for our case. We have one Echo Dot 2 speaker in this demo (Thomas’s 1st Echo Dot), and so, only one device therefore, is shown in the Alexa devices list above. Tapping on that one, produces something like the following screenshot.
4. Tap Our Imaginary Reboot Menu Item
The location of the (hopefully futuristic) Reboot item, would likely be located where the pink arrow is pointing in the previous picture. Activating the Reboot item would bring up a Reboot Confirmation dialog box, which would appear similarly to that found in the Google Home app when you’re rebooting a Google Home speaker.
5. Tap the REBOOT Link to Continue with Reboot Echo Dot 2 Instructions
This would start a remote reboot Echo Dot 2 run on your speaker and close the Reboot Confirmation dialog box. It would then return you to the Device Settings screen. But your speaker, during the reboot, would show as Offline. This is temporary however, as the speaker will again come online once it finishes rebooting.
6. Done with Reboot Echo Dot 2 !
Once the speaker shows as online, reboot has finished successfully, and you can try some commands and questions. Hopefully, rebooting has solved any issues you were experiencing. If not, you can always try more intrusive tactics, such as hard resetting your speaker, and then setting it up again. See our links in the Related Posts section below for instructions on how to take those more drastic steps. Good luck.
Again, please note that we doubt that remote booting of the Echo speakers via the Alexa app is possible at this moment. But we feel that once remote restarting has been implemented, it will work about like we just described. If it doesn’t, we’ll update this post accordingly.
Related Posts to Reboot Echo Dot 2
Other Posts About Echo Dot 2 Speakers
References for Reboot Echo Dot 2
Revision History
-
- 2019-04-29: Added tags and deleted ad code. Tuned the targeting and shortened post URL.
- 2019-01-01: Added subheadings and improved key phrase targeting.
- 2017-01-28: Originally published.