Why Echo Studio Sound Keeps Cutting Out? 8 Fixes to Try

Congratulations! You’ve decided to join the smart home movement and purchased Amazon’s Echo Studio. As with any device, there is always a chance of glitches and it’s a well-known fact to many smart home product users that the Amazon Echo Studio has difficulty delivering a strong audio experience for its users.

Now of course this list is in layman’s terms, and everyone has a different sound setup, so sometimes the solution doesn’t happen after the first step. But before you decide to live with the glitch or return your Echo Studio, I have 8 fixes for you to try with your current sound setup.

Restart and Reset Your Echo Studio

Nothing could be easier than a good old-fashioned restart or reset, even the most non-tech-savvy person can perform these steps. And, yes, these are two very different solutions, even though most people think they are the same thing.

Hard Restart

To do a hard restart on your Echo, follow these steps:

1. You will need to completely disconnect the power cable from the power source, as well as the device itself.
2. Give it a count of 10 and then plug everything back in and turn the device on again. 
3. For devices that have removable batteries, simply take the batteries or battery pack out, wait for a count of ten, and put the batteries or battery pack back in before turning the device back on again

The main difference between a restart and a reset is that a reset erases the device’s settings.

Reset

So to perform a reset on your Echo Studio, you need to follow these steps: 

1. Start by pressing down the volume down and microphone off buttons at the same time for a count of 20.
2. Then you just wait for the light to come back on the device, indicating power on
3. Then you can start using your device like normal

If you’d like to learn more about Echo Studio, check out this article.

Restart and Reset Your WiFi Router

It’s always a good idea to restart and reset your WiFi router if the above steps didn’t solve the audio problem for your Echo Studio. Sometimes it’s a matter of connectivity to your internet. A good way to test if it is an internet connectivity issue is by plugging in a different audio system to the device you are receiving audio from, whether it’s your phone, computer, or TV.

While each router is different, the process for hard restarts and resets are relatively the same. Hard restart by unplugging from the power source, wait 10 seconds, plug the router back in, and then power on as usual. In most cases, WiFi routers have their reset button located on the device itself.

Of course, you should always check the user manual for any further questions in regards to your WiFi router, and if you don’t have the manual most companies have specialists to help you.

Updating Your WiFi Router

Oftentimes your bandwidth can be an issue when it comes to all your smart home products, it’s not exclusive to one product or device. If you have a lot of smart home products in your home that are used consistently, it might be time to upgrade your WiFi router so your devices don’t bog down your WiFi. 

Having faster internet speeds makes for a happier smart home all around, everyone can use their devices as they see fit without interfering with other devices capabilities.The only issue you would run into updating your router to fix the audio connection on your Echo Studio is that while 5GHz tends to get less congested, it has a shorter range and bad obstacle penetration. 

So, if you do upgrade to a stronger bandwidth, be sure to put the Echo Studio and the streaming device of your choice closer to the router to decrease the chance that something is blocking the signal.

Disconnect Bluetooth of Affected Devices

Sounds simple enough, right? The bluetooth connection between your Echo Studio and the streaming device is crucial to your overall experience. There are a plethora of how-to videos on youtube showing how to disconnect the bluetooth functionality on your Echo Studio. 

And as far as disconnecting the bluetooth function on your other streaming devices, there should be a special on/off button labeled bluetooth, or you can find it in settings. Many customers in the online forums found this to be beneficial, and said that it fixed their audio issues.

Use A Hardwired Connection

This solution goes along with the one above, if the problem persists when using a bluetooth connection then it’s time to try a hardwire connection. Amazon actually makes a special cable just for this purpose too, called an AmazonBasics Toslink cable. 

If you feel like that’s not a good option then you’re more than welcome to purchase your favorite brand of optical cable, the forums on Amazon and Reddit also state that having a stereo converter for this setup helps fix the audio cutting out.

Switch Audio Outputs

Another option to consider is switching the audio outputs back and forth when the problem occurs. Often enough when sound drops with the Echo Studio, switching the audio outputs off and back on, that seemed to help. In order to do that, you would go into the settings on your streaming device i.e. your TV and switch it back to that device’s speakers momentarily. 

Only about 10 seconds is needed then you can switch the audio output back to the Echo Studio. This technique is often paired with a restart or reset of the Echo Studio and streaming device.

Check For A Software Update

There are various generations of Amazon Echo products, with the 4th generation being the newest. If you go onto Amazon’s website and search you can see all the latest statistics for the software updates on all Amazon Echo products, or you can simply ask Alexa to check for a recent update for your model. 

If your Echo Studio is not running on up to date software, which is unlikely because Alexa checks for updates every night, but if that’s not the case then it is highly recommended to update.

To force your Echo to update all you need to do is ask it a simple command, then all you do is press and release the mute button. The LED will be red to indicate that muting is active on the device. Then you just wait, usually just a few minutes but it can take up to a half an hour. 

Alexa will announce that she needs to perform an update, then you can proceed with the installation. Once complete the device will restart on its own with fully updated software and it will no longer be muted.

Updating the software versions on any smart home product has a lot of benefits including, faster response times and better overall experience. It also decreases the risk of a software crash because each update installs anti virus and fixes any known bugs. 

And if you have any questions about this process, because it can get rough if you are inexperienced, Amazon has trained support agents.

Don’t Use The Echo Studio As A Home Theater

Now I know this may sound backwards, because most people have purchased the Echo Studio to be used in conjunction with their TVs. If none of the above mentioned tips helped, then your Echo Studio should not be used as a home theater option. 

The Echo Studio has amazing sound quality compared to its competitors, but the forums online rarely mentioned the audio issue being a problem when being used in conjunction with other streaming devices such as a phone, tablet, or computer, or even just the Echo Studio by itself. 

A good handful of customers also stated that the Fire Stick 4k and the Fire Cube also seemed to be an issue when being used with the Echo Studio.