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HomePod HomePod prevents Siri from working on other people’s iPhones.

tromboneaholic

tromboneaholic

Suspended
Original poster
Jun 9, 2004
3,706
3,024
Clearwater, FL
Last night HomePod in the living room answered my wife twice for Hey Siri.

The problem is she was in the bedroom and expected her iPhone to take the request.

Homepod is on my Apple ID account, so she didn’t want it to handle her request.

After a minute or so, her iPhone responded twice to the previous “hey Siri” even though HomePod already had.

HomePod blocked her iPhone from responding until it was done. By the time it allowed her iPhone to respond, Siri on the phone timed out too quickly to actually use...it wasn’t listening.

My wife is a user in the Home app, so she can set scenes for lighting from her phone, so I assume this is why her Siri on her iPhone can be blocked by HomePod even though the speaker is using my Apple ID instead of her Apple ID.
 
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If you're in the same room and say hey siri, I don't think there's any way around that, other then maybe changing the alert phrase. I'm not sure if that's possible but that's the only way.
 
maflynn said:
If you're in the same room and say hey siri, I don't think there's any way around that, other then maybe changing the alert phrase. I'm not sure if that's possible but that's the only way.
Click to expand...

If only, it seems Apple think it’s another of those features we don’t need. Best we can do is submit feature requests for it and cross our fingers.
 
TrueBlou said:
If only, it seems Apple think it’s another of those features we don’t need. Best we can do is submit feature requests for it and cross our fingers.
Click to expand...
While I do think they need voice recognition, so to discern different people, I don't believe we'll ever see a feature where another person cannot use the HomePod. I think they want all family members to be able to initiate music or some other feature. I know reading your texts and other personal items should have some level of voice recognition
 
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maflynn said:
While I do think they need voice recognition, so to discern different people, I don't believe we'll ever see a feature where another person cannot use the HomePod. I think they want all family members to be able to initiate music or some other feature. I know reading your texts and other personal items should have some level of voice recognition
Click to expand...

I’m not suggesting we lock people out from using it, that’s not the issue the op has really. If each member of the family had a different Siri wake word for their devices then his wife wouldn’t have been blocked from using her iPhone because HomePod thought she was talking to it.
 
maflynn said:
If you're in the same room and say hey siri, I don't think there's any way around that, other then maybe changing the alert phrase. I'm not sure if that's possible but that's the only way.
Click to expand...
The crazy thing she was in the bedroom, but homepod heard and responded from the living room. So it's thumbs up for the microphone, but considering her phone was two feet away from her on the night table, it really should have let her phone take the request. Her phone was face up on the charger. Also, since homepod is only able to handle personal requests from my Apple ID, I don't think homepod Siri should be overriding her iPhone Siri.
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maflynn said:
While I do think they need voice recognition, so to discern different people, I don't believe we'll ever see a feature where another person cannot use the HomePod. I think they want all family members to be able to initiate music or some other feature. I know reading your texts and other personal items should have some level of voice recognition
Click to expand...
Normally my wife's iPhone X will recognize her saying hey Siri, and mine recognizes me saying it... Even when both phones are next to reach other.
[doublepost=1518707929][/doublepost]
TrueBlou said:
I’m not suggesting we lock people out from using it, that’s not the issue the op has really. If each member of the family had a different Siri wake word for their devices then his wife wouldn’t have been blocked from using her iPhone because HomePod thought she was talking to it.
Click to expand...
I was thinking the same thing, but I'm pretty sure Apple will stick to the Siri brand and not allow other names...
 
So far, the only solution is to tell Siri to stop listening when we go to bed, and then touch the speaker the next day when we want to use it. Not an ideal workaround....
 
Apple has features and functions built in for your problem, kind of anyway.

Hey Siri from the HomePod takes the reigns with Hey Siri request. If it can hear you at all it will generally cancel out the Hey Siri request to iOS devices. And the HomePod is especially good at hearing you with all its mics more actively listening.

However if your iOS device is locked, if you "raise to wake" and say Hey Siri, even right next to the HomePod it will cancel out the request to the HomePod and use the iOS device or Apple Watch.

Conversely if your iPhone is face down it won't respond and the HomePod will.

I feel the HomePod was always intended for multiple user support based on some of Apples odd choices and current omissions but they released it before it was ready. Not that would help with the OP's problem.
 
tromboneaholic said:
The crazy thing she was in the bedroom, but homepod heard and responded from the living room. So it's thumbs up for the microphone, but considering her phone was two feet away from her on the night table, it really should have let her phone take the request. Her phone was face up on the charger. Also, since homepod is only able to handle personal requests from my Apple ID, I don't think homepod Siri should be overriding her iPhone Siri.
Click to expand...

That is the problem - if she is using the phone, Siri will normally defer to that device. If the phone is not being used ( on the night table ) then control will be passed to the HomePod. Solution pickup the phone before using Siri.
 
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Or perhaps get a bigger house, or don't talk that loud :)

Or perhaps get another HomePod for the Bedroom, it would be interesting to see which takes precedent there :)
 
James Craner said:
That is the problem - if she is using the phone, Siri will normally defer to that device. If the phone is not being used ( on the night table ) then control will be passed to the HomePod. Solution pickup the phone before using Siri.
Click to expand...
That’s not a solution though, since it adds more effort than before and makes Hey Siri on the phone pointless.

The point is Siri on HomePod is intercepting her Hey Siri requests, but it can’t act on them since the HomePod is registered to my Apple ID.

It can’t send messages for her, or set her alarm, or any personal requests, so it’s poor design for the HomePod to take priority and essentially disable hey Siri on her iPhone when the phone is next to her on it’s charger and the HomePod is in another room down the hall.
 
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If I say hey Siri play music. It seems to be confused, as I have hey Siri activated on my iPad, iPhone, and HomePod. So it seems to try sometimes to play on my HomePod. While other times it seems to try and play thru another device besides my HomePod.
 
Is she listed as a person belonging to your Home under Homekit? Perhaps the HomePod is aware of her voice and therefore, listening for her voice commands as well.
 
HQuest said:
Is she listed as a person belonging to your Home under Homekit? Perhaps the HomePod is aware of her voice and therefore, listening for her voice commands as well.
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Yes. That’s the exact issue.

She is able to use HomeKit to control lights and other accessories in the home, including HomePod. But HomePod is registered to my Apple ID, so it can’t handle her personal requests — the ones that it is preventing her iPhone from replying to.

She can pick up her iPhone and say hey Siri to make it work, but it won’t respond unless she activates the iPhone. Before she would use hey Siri when her iPhone was on the charger without having to interact with it physically.
 
Press and hold the physical button to activate Siri on the iPhone, iPad, and/or Apple watch. Use "Hey Siri" just for the HomePod.
 
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tromboneaholic said:
But then she has to reach for her phone on the charger, which she didn’t have to do before.

It’s not a solution. It’s a workaround to a design flaw.
Click to expand...

Do you guys family share the same Apple account? That could possibly explain it.

HomePod is DESIGNED to have priority over other iOS devices when the "Hey, Siri" command is issued. But it should only affect iOS devices on the same account as the HomePod.

If you guys share an account then HomePod is doing exactly what it is designed to do. If your wife has her own, separate, Apple account, then it's time to talk to an Apple Care rep.

Mark
 
Mark Booth said:
Do you guys family share the same Apple account? That could possibly explain it.

HomePod is DESIGNED to have priority over other iOS devices when the "Hey, Siri" command is issued. But it should only affect iOS devices on the same account as the HomePod.

If you guys share an account then HomePod is doing exactly what it is designed to do. If your wife has her own, separate, Apple account, then it's time to talk to an Apple Care rep.

Mark
Click to expand...
I was about to say the same. Hey Siri should only apply to the devices connected to the same apple account, and anyone else's shouldn't even be considered in the "which device should respond" transaction. If you both have the same account on your phones then this is the cause of the issue. And if so, why do you use the same account? Family Sharing makes that an unnecessary step nowadays.
 
daijholt said:
I was about to say the same. Hey Siri should only apply to the devices connected to the same apple account, and anyone else's shouldn't even be considered in the "which device should respond" transaction. If you both have the same account on your phones then this is the cause of the issue. And if so, why do you use the same account? Family Sharing makes that an unnecessary step nowadays.
Click to expand...
I think you guys are getting confused.

There is a Home user, for HomeKit apps and accessories. There also is a homepod user.

There are two distinct users types.

She is a Home user, so she can control scenes and accessories.

I am a Home user, so I can control scenes and accessories.

We are using two separate Apple IDs for Home.

Homepod only accepts one Apple ID for personal requests. We are using my Apple ID for that.

The problem is since she is a Home user, homepod is intercepting her Hey Siri request even though it cannot fulfill then if it is a personal request.
[doublepost=1519055472][/doublepost]
Mark Booth said:
HomePod is DESIGNED to have priority over other iOS devices when the "Hey, Siri" command is issued. But it should only affect iOS devices on the same account as the HomePod.

Mark
Click to expand...

That's not how it works at all...

It will intercept anyone registered in the Home app.

Home app allows for several people to be added to a Home with different Apple Id's for each person.

Homepod prevents Hey Siri from working on those people's devices even though they are not registered on homepod itself.

It should not be doing this if the person is making a personal request.
 
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tromboneaholic said:
Homepod prevents Hey Siri from working on those people's devices even though they are not registered on homepod itself.

It should not be doing this if the person is making a personal request.
Click to expand...
I agree, and I suspect/hope they will tweak things. One thing they need is for it to have the ability to differentiate based on voice. Allow owners of HomePods to limit voice control by their voice, and to optionally allow other people to register themselves as additional users (with approval by the owner).
 
tromboneaholic said:
I think you guys are getting confused.

There is a Home user, for HomeKit apps and accessories. There also is a homepod user.

There are two distinct users types.

She is a Home user, so she can control scenes and accessories.

I am a Home user, so I can control scenes and accessories.

We are using two separate Apple IDs for Home.

Homepod only accepts one Apple ID for personal requests. We are using my Apple ID for that.

The problem is since she is a Home user, homepod is intercepting her Hey Siri request even though it cannot fulfill then if it is a personal request.
[doublepost=1519055472][/doublepost]

That's not how it works at all...

It will intercept anyone registered in the Home app.

Home app allows for several people to be added to a Home with different Apple Id's for each person.

Homepod prevents Hey Siri from working on those people's devices even though they are not registered on homepod itself.

It should not be doing this if the person is making a personal request.
Click to expand...
I hadn’t thought of this. Is there an article anywhere that explains this functionality?
 
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