Amazon alexa down: homes left in the dark after tech devices fail

People went on social media to complain about the outage - with some complaining their household devices were not working. "My whole house relies on Alexa for lighting, heating,

security, doors etc - I'm sitting in a dark house in the cold and the door won't open," wrote one complaint, reports Birmingham Live. "She is refusing to acknowledge

me!!" wrote another. "On all 4 devices, fire TV and no music. Thankfully I can still control lights on app." A spokesperson for Amazon said: "This morning we had an issue

that impacted some Alexa customers’ ability to interact with the service. The Alexa service is now operating normally." READ MORE ALEXA DOWN: HOW TO REBOOT YOUR AMAZON ECHO AND GET

ALEXA WORKING AGAIN The outage has raised concern whether households are putting too much emphasis on artifical intelligence. ESET, an internet security company, recommends all households

use traditional "switches" and other "backup" technologies. Jake Moore, Global Cyber Security Advisor at ESET, said: "Although it is difficult to predict whether or

not this is a cyberattack on Amazon’s servers, it does pose the question of whether or not we are putting too much emphasis on smart technology in our homes. Cyberattacks are still possible

despite the increasingly sophisticated anti-malware technology that exists, and therefore we must never become complacent against the possibility of such a hack which can dramatically effect

large numbers of people. "Once we put all our eggs into one technological basket, there becomes one simple point of failure that can have a huge impact in a smart home and therefore

our daily lives. Using smart devices to control lights, heating and other areas of a home is extremely tempting but it is advised to always know if the backup 'old fashioned'

switches are still applicable." Alexa is Amazon's artificial intelligence voice assistant. It can be used with a smart speaker or a range of other devices to do things like browse

the web, order products, control smart home appliances, and much more. However, Alexa relies on connection to Amazon Web Services, which may have been the cause of its problems this morning.