

Amazon's AI is well trained, and learning more every day, but it has a lot of accents, tones and dialects to deal with. It could be that the problem lies not with Alexa but with your voice instead. Keeping the Alexa microphones away from sources of other noise, like open windows or moving air from a fan, can also help. Presuming you're using something with a built-in speaker, you'll also want to keep the volume a little lower if you expect yourself to be heard while there's music playing. Grab some compressed air and gently clear the microphone ports on top don't start poking pins in there, because you are not a savage.

If it's not pointing to you, that's a hint that something's still not right. On standard Echo units, call out your wake word (usually "Alexa", as long as you've not changed it to one of the other options) and the brightest part of the blue ring will point toward the direction in which Alexa heard its name called. Shifting it may also fix network connectivity issues, too.

Repositioning your Echo or Echo-compatible device is a good way to check if the friendly AI is hard of hearing because of actual echoes confusing its far-field mics it's generally best to keep such hardware lower down and slightly away from walls if possible, just to give your voice the best chance of being heard.
