Alexa is a one-stop hub for all the smart home devices at your place, as long as you have them connected to it. This even includes smart light bulbs.
The device can communicate with these bulbs to turn them on, off, or even change their color if it’s supported. Using routines, you can set up some pretty cool aesthetics with these features.
But, sometimes you might have a stubborn Alexa routine that’s not changing the light color when you want it to. If that’s happening right now, give the tips below a quick read to see what solutions might help you.
Read:
Dealing With An Alexa Routine Not Changing The Light Color
- Try A Different Routine
Usually, instead of trying to fix a routine that’s not working, it’s much more effective to just quickly cook up a new one. This doesn’t take much time at all, and is a lot less confusing.
So, get rid of that old routine that’s not working and try a couple of different ones out to see what works best for you. I’m going to go over a couple in particular that were helpful for people having this problem.
To implement either of these, first you need to…
- Open the Alexa App and go to More.
- Now find Routines and click on it.
- Click the + sign to add a routine.
There are a couple of tried and tested routines I’ve used myself to make Alexa change smart bulb light colors. The first one you should give a shot is…
- When (the thing you want to happen, happens), turn On the tights.
- Change color to (color you want).
- Adjust brightness.
Make sure all of these are in one single action. This one should work for you, and the lights should change the color you want them to.
But, on the off chance it doesn’t work, here’s another fix to try out.
- Separate The Actions In The Routine
If the routine I mentioned didn’t do the trick, it’s possible that the single action is either too complicated for your bulb, or there’s some other communication problem with it.
So, there’s another routine you can try with the actions separated. To try this, follow the steps I mentioned before to get to the routine menu in the Alexa App, and set this routine:
- When (the thing you want to happen, happens), turn on the lights.
- Change color to (color you want).
Now end this action here and create a new one.
- In the new, entirely separate action, add a rule to adjust the brightness percentage.
Separating the actions has helped users fix this problem before, and hopefully it does the trick for you as well. Just make sure both actions are in the same routine, and it’ll work smoothly.
- Remove Brightness Adjustment
Brightness adjustment is the last step on both of the routine examples I shared earlier. It lets you set an exact volume percentage on the light bulb so you can choose just how bright or dark it gets.
That’s pretty handy for setting a vibe, or just making sure it isn’t too dark or bright. However, it’s also a big reason why this happens. If separating the action for brightness adjustment didn’t work, try removing it altogether.
Since it tends to be the problem in this situation, getting rid of it completely might help you fix the issue. This is pretty easy to do.
Just make a new routine and add steps for turning on the light, then changing its color. Now leave that as the only two commands and make it one action, without any brightness adjustment. That should fix it for you.
- Use Magic Home Skill
Lastly, try to use the Magic Home Skill on your Alexa to see if that helps you fix the issue. It’s something that helps with home automation, and particular light bulbs.
To add it to your Alexa…
- Go to the Alexa App and click on More.
- Find and tap Skills & Games.
- Search for the Magic Home Skill.
- Once you find it, just tap enable to add it to Alexa and use it.
