How to Hard Factory Reset an Amazon Smart Plug

Evan Gower November 1, 2019

The Amazon Smart Plug is very useful and relatively inexpensive. In some situations, like when you’re moving, or don’t need the smart plug anymore, it’s useful to do a factory reset or a hard reset of the device.

How to Hard Factory Reset an Amazon Smart Plug

You need to deregister the device from your Amazon account and revert it to factory settings. This sounds complicated and dreadful, but it really isn’t. You can do it by yourself, and we’ll show you how with easy to follow steps.

Keep reading and you’ll learn everything that you need to know on the matter.

Why Should You Hard Reset an Amazon Smart Plug?

In case you want to gift or sell your Amazon Smart Plug to someone, it’s advised that you hard reset it. In fact, you can’t even give it to another person if the device is still synced with your smart home devices (Amazon Echo).

If you bought one too many of these devices, you can easily resell them. They’ll be practically new after the reset. Why throw this cool device away when you can make some money selling it?

Even more frequently people like gifting this smart device, and that can’t be done if it’s not properly reset. If you are gifting it to a person who lives in your household, then you don’t have to bother with the reset.

Without much further ado, let’s move on to the explanation of the process.

Amazon Smart Plug Hard Reset

There is a very brief explanation of the hard reset or factory reset of the Amazon Smart Plug on the official Amazon support website. The steps for doing it are right below, but you’ll need to also deregister the Amazon Smart Plug from your Amazon account via the app.

Begin with the physical part, i.e. the hard reset:

Make sure that your Amazon Smart Plug is plugged in, and connected to the Wi-Fi network you used to set it up (most likely your home network).
Press and hold the reset button located on the side of the device. After at least twelve seconds have passed, release the button.
Third-party smart plugs have a slightly different process. You need to unplug them and wait for ten seconds. Then hold the reset button and plug the device into your outlet. When the LED lights up, release the button.
The device itself will be factory reset. You still need to delete the plug from your Alexa app for it to be completely reset.

Amazon Smart Plug Deregister and Reset

Make sure that your Alexa app is installed on your smartphone and updated to the newest version. Here are the download links for the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. Follow the instructions:

Start the Alexa app on your Android or iPhone.
Tap on the Devices icon at the bottom-right corner of your screen.
Select the Plugs option.
You’ll see a list of Amazon Smart Plugs associated with your Amazon account. Tap on the device you want to deregister.
Tap on the More option (top-right corner of your screen).
Again tap on the top-right corner of the screen, this time on the option Delete (trash can icon).
Confirm by tapping on Delete on the pop-up window.
Check the Devices window on the Alexa app once again. Now, the plug should be removed. If you had only one smart plug, the list of plugs will be empty.
This will also initiate the factory reset of your Amazon Smart Plug. If you haven’t done it already or didn’t do it right, this will make things even easier for you. During this reset, the LED indicator will flash orange. When the reset is complete, it will start flashing blue.
Take out the plug. The next time you plug it in, or someone else does, it will require a fresh installation.

Final Piece of Advice

That is how you do a factory reset of your Amazon Smart Plug. Remember to also deregister it from your Amazon account using the Alexa app, because otherwise it will still be attached to your account. This is a hard or factory reset.

There’s a soft reset too, which is easy to do. You can reset your Amazon Smart Plug just by unplugging it and plugging it back in. You can try that when the device is not working properly. If you’re still having trouble, do a hard factory reset and it will work like new.

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