Amazon Echo Low Battery Alert

But wait my echo doesn’t have a battery does it?

It is 3:30 in the morning and I can’t go back to sleep after hearing the Amazon Echo Low Battery alert. What is the alert? It says “low battery” three times. I looked all around and as far as I can tell my Amazon Echo aka Alexa, doesn’t have a battery.

Laughing randomly and now an Amazon Echo Low Battery Alert?

At first I thought it was a smoke detector. Alexa sounds suspiciously close to the Kidde smoke detectors in my house that have voice alerts. Kind of like an annoying myna bird I guess. While replacing the last of the smoke detector batteries I heard it again. Low Battery, three times. This time my wife figured out it was the Echo saying it.

Figuring the Echo is supposed to be a virtual assistant, it must know something I don’t. I said “Alexa, do you have a low battery”. It replied “Hmm, I don’t know about that”. Then I asked “Alexa, what has a low battery”. It. replied “Hmm, I didn’t quite get that”.

Amazon Echo Low Battery Alert Wake  up, get beignets.
Since I am up…

Amazon Echo Low Battery Alert Solution on Alexa Forum?

The Amazon Alexa Forum had two threads with similar questions. The solutions were to disconnect bluetooth devices and if that doesn’t help, stick a pin in its bottom and do a factory reset.

Looking at the Alexa App, the only connected device was an old iPhone that is sitting in a lock box in the CoolToys Jeep as an emergency phone. That thing has been dead for months I am sure. So of course I followed the advice of the forum and for the next three hours, not a peep.

Then at dinner “low battery, low battery, low battery” sounded in my house. I grabbed a pin and pressed the button on the bottom. At 7:04 and 8:04 I didn’t hear anything so I hoped we had a fix.

A Better Low Battery Solution?

At 2:04 am, I thought I heard someone talking and at 3:04 my suspicions were confirmed. Alexa was blurting out “low battery” again. The echo is no longer connected to power so I could go back to bed.

Unfortunately I was now awake and not able to go to bed so I decided to post in the Alexa Forum. To save you from reading my rant, here is the important part.

My Solution to the Amazon Echo Low Battery Alert

Please pass on to the knuckleheads who thought saying “low battery” with no other information would be a good idea to either

1. turn off the feature, or

2. add the device name when it says “low battery” i.e. “iPhone5S Low Battery” or at least

3. show a low battery message with the device in question on the app.  

and finally

4. In the app have a “do not disturb” time window like my iPhone and other Apple devices do.

Anyone else enjoying this “feature”?

May 15th 2019, Follow Up Note. After unplugging for 15 minutes, and then doing the full reset, pushing a pin in the little hole in the bottom for 8 seconds, I haven’t heard low battery since. The iPhone was in fact verified to be completely dead locked in the Jeep.

April 27th 2020, Follow Up Note 2. Two Tech Support calls at our parent company for a similar incident found that a connected device had a low battery, and that was causing the Alexa to call out. We haven’t been able to duplicate this though. The note from the tech says that he looked at all bluetooth connected devices and insured they had power.

The second support call turned out to be a Panasonic cordless phone that was in it’s cradle and sounded very much like Alexa. The phone was next to the Alexa and the power adapter had come unplugged.

More recent events blamed on Alexa have turned out to be another Panasonic cordless phone and a newer carbon monoxide detector.

Editors note – The bottom line is if you hear “low battery”, even from your Alexa, it clearly isn’t Alexa since the Echo’s don’t have batteries.

5 comments

  1. Thank you for taking the time to write this up. We had the exact same problem. And sure enough; the Panasonic phone’s power adapter was unplugged. Many blessings to you for solving this problem. I was about to buy a new Echo Dot!

  2. My Alexa woke me in the middle of the night saying low battery three times. A few hours later it repeated low battery. Research told me Alexa doesn’t have a battery. Eventually I discovered my home phone telephone was not plugged in and the battery in the handset was nearly dead. As soon as I plugged it in the warnings stopped.

    Life is full os surprises.

  3. You are a life saver. Echo did this to me last night. Spent hours trying to figure this out. It was my Panasonic phone! Thank you thank you.

  4. I just went through same thing with my Roomba which is how I ended up here. I couldn’t place where the sound was originating from.

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