Everyone talks “A-I” but Today it’s “Alexa” Issues!

I have some “Alexa” controlled devices.  My life, however does not depend on them working.  I can still turn a light on or off myself, and never “over-animated” my home with too much web-based/voice-activated stuff.  

Earlier this afternoon, the WION “Skill” was unreachable my Amazon.  Our “Weatherflow” skill also went down….and, I randomly checked some of my Amazon accounts personal skills. Some worked, some did not, but this was early into an “Alexa Outage.” 

An hour later or so, control of the lights became spotty.  “Groups” of lights would not respond, but individually I could command them.  Seems like “linked” things are having difficulty.  I can still play “WION Radio” but not the skill…and individually, “Desk, South Wall, Loveseat, Rocker, End Table” Etc will work as individual lights. 

I’m always curious, so I check what I think are “larger” outages bigger than my own home or studios by visiting “downdetector.com” and there were only eight reports of issues.  With that small of an amount, I have to figure the reason is spotty internet which would not be out of the realm of possibility given recent Charter/Spectrum experiences in the Ionia area.  One hour later, the graph showed issues at what is called ‘AWS’ or “Amazon Web Services.” ….

But, in my case two things are different than some other people:
1) I can still manually control my lights and own a REAL radio or five to enjoy WION.

2) I don’t “smart lock” so, I always have keys to get in to my home or the WION studios…unlike this person:

If  I were that person, I don’t think I’d publicly admit I can’t get into my house!  That’s being UNprepared for the inevitable failure of electronics and the web.  How silly!  How dumb!  But yet, how “American” of this person….to be unprepared.  

It’s storm season….(unrelated to this particular outage.)  Our lives are bettered in many ways with the internet but it’s not a guaranteed service that’s “up” 24/7/365 as WION has often told you and sometimes experienced.  We have to adapt when there are issues.  Device control via the web is not perfect.   Our question to you is, do you PREPARE for things like this?  Do you know how to get through your day if the ‘net or a service like Alexa’s voice control is down, or are you like the person above that can’t get “inside my house and need to find key”

We hope you’ll be prepared for storms, power outages, and internet outages.  Have keys, flashlights, real battery or alternative radios, and ways to communicate with family and friends PLANNED for when our internet or services are down.  It’s the SMART thing to do when SMART THINGS are not working.

-Carlyle