Echo Show Will Not Turn On – What to Do

With its 7-inch touchscreen, Amazon’s Echo Show is a great addition to the Echo series, bringing video to the mix.

Of course, as with all tech, there are times when the device just freezes and doesn’t respond to your commands. In the case of Echo Show, a simple reset should do the trick.

Restart Your Device

It’s pretty straightforward:

1. Unplug the power adapter from the device or the outlet.
2. Wait for three minutes.
3. Plug the adapter back into your Echo Show.

If you’re still unable to turn on the device, make sure it’s connected to the power adapter it came with.

Factory Reset

If a simple reset didn’t help, and your Echo Show is still unresponsive, you can try the factory reset. Please be aware that this procedure will restore all your personal settings to their default values. Here are the steps:

1. Locate the “Mute” and “Volume Down” buttons on top of your Echo Show.
2. Press and hold both buttons at the same time until the Amazon logo appears. That usually takes around 15 seconds.
   
3. When the instructions appear on the screen, follow them to setup your device.

Once the setup is complete, your Echo Show should be back to its former glory.

Also, whenever you’re not happy with the changes you made to your device, you can always use the factory reset to set everything back to defaults.

Keeping Your Smart Home Connections After the Reset

What if you have several smart home devices already connected to your Echo Show? It would certainly be quite annoying to have to reconnect everything after each factory reset. Worry not, because there’s the “Keep Your Smart Home Connections” option in the on-screen reset menu.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Open the Settings menu, by either saying “Go to settings” or by swiping down from the top of the screen and selecting “Settings” (top right corner of the screen).
2. Tap “Device Options”.
3. Tap “Reset to Factory Defaults”.
4. Tap “Reset to Factory Defaults, but retain Smart Home Device Connections”.
5. Tap “Reset” to confirm.

With this, factory reset will only delete all of your personal details and device settings while retaining the connections to your smart home devices.

Set Up Your Echo Show

Once factory reset completes, you’ll need to set up your device from scratch. To do so, simply follow the instructions on the screen and enter all the required information. There are only three steps to this:

1. Select the preferred language.
2. Connect to your Wi-Fi network.
3. Log into your Amazon account.

You will know that setup is complete when a couple of rotating pages appear on your Echo Show’s home screen.

Switching Wi-Fi Networks

If you’d like to change the current Wi-Fi network, follow these steps:

1. Open the “Settings” menu, either by voice or by selecting the option from the swipe-down menu.
2. Tap “Network”.
3. Tap the name of the network you want to connect to.
4. If prompted, enter the network’s password.

If you can’t find the desired Wi-Fi network listed in the “Network” menu, you can scroll down to find advanced Wi-Fi options.

Please note that Amazon’s Echo devices can only connect to dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4/5 GHz) networks over the 802.11a/b/g/n standard. They can’t connect to ad-hoc or peer-to-peer networks.

Use Echo Show as a Home Control

The Echo Show can be used as a smart home dashboard. Want to turn the lights off before you go to bed? Just tap the screen. Want to check your shopping list? No problem, it’s right there.

Because this option isn’t turned on by default, you’ll need to activate it from the Echo Show’s settings menu.

1. Open the “Settings” menu.
2. Tap “Accessibility”.
3. Enable the “Tap to Alexa” option.

Now your home screen will have a new hand icon in the bottom-right corner. Just tap it to bring up the dashboard. Here you can see all the devices and actions you can use by tapping the Echo Show’s screen.

If you wish to reorder icons, tap “Manage”, and press and hold on an icon until you can drag it across the screen. Place it where you want it and lift your finger from the screen. That’s it. To remove icons, tap “X” from the Manage menu. To add new ones, just tap “+Add” next to the “Manage” button.

Two More Tips for the Road

Although not so obvious at first, you can still use voice commands to exit any menu on your Echo Show. To return to the home screen, just say “Alexa, go home”, and guess what does the “Alexa, turn off the screen” command do?

Boosting Your Smart Home

Amazon’s constant software and hardware improvements to the Alexa system is a step in the right direction for future living. With many new smart devices popping up all the time, you’re able to assume an unprecedented level of control over your living space.

Are you a smart home enthusiast or do you use Echo Show just for a couple of tasks? Have you ever considered adding devices to your smart home network? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.