Listening to white noise or background sounds such as wind or thunderstorms has proven to be an effective sleeping aid. It creates a calming atmosphere in your bedroom to help you fall asleep faster and improve your sleep quality in general. Fortunately, getting access to these sleep sounds is easy via any white noise mobile app on your phone. But while you can readily play these sounds from your mobile, you might not want to keep it running throughout the night, especially if you’re concerned about its battery. If Alexa was playing Sleep Sounds before you went to bed and stopped unexpectedly, it might be due to a firmware update. These updates can automatically happen at any time, and while the device is updating, Sleep Sounds (and any other active skill) will be interrupted. To see if your Echo Dot is updating, check whether it’s showing a slow-moving orange line on the device. For the Echo Show, on the other hand, look for an “Updating” message on the screen. You’ll also know when a device is updating its software when it doesn’t respond to your wake word. There are plenty of unexpected ways to use your smart speaker or display with the help of Alexa skills. But for them to work, the specific Alexa skill has to be installed. If you’re using your smart speaker or display as a white noise machine but it isn’t playing Sleep Sounds, it might be because you’ve disabled it before, either from the Alexa app or via voice command. If you try using Sleep Sounds after it has been disabled, you’ll get a message saying, “You’ve disabled Sleep Sounds in the past. Do you want to enable it again?” Simply say yes or re-enable Sleep Sounds right away. If you try to play Sleep Sounds via Alexa and the device responds that it isn’t supported, you might need to find and install a different sleep sound skill. Luckily for you, there are loads of options you can easily find on the Alexa skills page on the app and the Amazon website, such as Thunderstorm Sounds by Sleep Jar, Sleep Sounds by K-Popping’s Tunes, 12 Hours Brown Noise, and Dreamscapes Sleep Sounds by Lopie Development.
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Sunday, March 23, 2025