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Apple Releases HomePod 15.4.1 Software With Siri Fix
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I’d just be happy if Siri could reliably tell the difference between the words “on” and “off”.
It's been my experience that if you want to have significant home automation you should just plan on 2 assistant systems. I have Siri/HomeKit and Alexa accessible everywhere and I've lost count of the degree to which one system or the other randomly loses track of particular devices for hours or days before suddenly accessing them again.
At least with 2 assistants I can almost always get one of them to work on a problematic device.
As far as smart home devices, I have to say that my Lutron hub for wall switches has been remarkably reliable/stable on both platforms.
Philips Hue is moderately stable, but often misfires on one or another light here or there.
Wemo and iDevices switches have been a total crap shoot, with at any given time at least 1-3 not working on each system (usually different problem devices on each system and sometimes for months at a time before randomly resolving, or not).
I remember that Apple originally was strongly biased against hubs for HomeKit, preferring each device to be direct WiFi, but the hubs have been so much more stable over the long term for me.
I did have some significant issues recently with lots of problem devices on both systems (including HomePod insisting my AppleTV was not on the same wifi network, when both were successfully streaming over it), but FWIW, just rebooting my Eero router basically fixed that.
There is just no rhyme or reason to how this technology works under the hood, and the user is offered access to NO diagnostic information whatsoever (here Amazon is as bad as Apple) so troubleshooting is basically impossible beyond random unplugging and plugging (which sometimes works).
At least with 2 assistants I can almost always get one of them to work on a problematic device.
As far as smart home devices, I have to say that my Lutron hub for wall switches has been remarkably reliable/stable on both platforms.
Philips Hue is moderately stable, but often misfires on one or another light here or there.
Wemo and iDevices switches have been a total crap shoot, with at any given time at least 1-3 not working on each system (usually different problem devices on each system and sometimes for months at a time before randomly resolving, or not).
I remember that Apple originally was strongly biased against hubs for HomeKit, preferring each device to be direct WiFi, but the hubs have been so much more stable over the long term for me.
I did have some significant issues recently with lots of problem devices on both systems (including HomePod insisting my AppleTV was not on the same wifi network, when both were successfully streaming over it), but FWIW, just rebooting my Eero router basically fixed that.
There is just no rhyme or reason to how this technology works under the hood, and the user is offered access to NO diagnostic information whatsoever (here Amazon is as bad as Apple) so troubleshooting is basically impossible beyond random unplugging and plugging (which sometimes works).
No. No it’s not.
The issue is that if you issue a command via Siri to your iPhone it works instantly, without hesitation or backchat.
If you do the exact same but to a HomePod you get what the poster mentioned, “On it… working on that… need a little more time… blah blah BS”.
So, no, it’s not Wi-Fi.
And yes, the issue still persists in this update, despite Apple’s release notes.
Very disappointing.
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I have four minis - two of them always (paired as TV speakers) ask me "I don't know where you are". Everytime I reset or restart them, they work fine for a few mins. When I unpair them, they work just fine. It has been months and months and god knows when they will fix this damn issue.
I loved how my HomePods sounded but I couldn’t stand the software interaction and finally sold them last year…
I honestly think they will never really get better than they are and at some point they’re going to start dying.
Super frustrating. Amazing product on the sound quality that had a ton of potential and just seemed totally incorrectly implemented by Apple
I honestly think they will never really get better than they are and at some point they’re going to start dying.
Super frustrating. Amazing product on the sound quality that had a ton of potential and just seemed totally incorrectly implemented by Apple
Okay I fixed my issues with Apple Music cutting out on my HomePods. Turns out it was Eero router with a feature called "Optimize for conference and gaming" feature turned on. This would cause Apple Music to not load or skip for some reason and also it started causing my Zoom videos to show 1 frame every 5 seconds. Disabled it and everything runs fine now.
What you know, the Homekit reliability is markedly worse for me since installing the update!
Lordy, still happening with this update? Like you said, from my watch I say "set scene relax". It's done instantly without back talk. I say it to my OG homepod or Mini, "on it.. working on that.. something is not responding". Constantly.
I agree. I have had very few issues it usually functions fine and gets done what I need.
This is the exact experience I have. I have an Apple Homepod and several Amazon Echo devices and there will be periods where one system works well while the other doesn't. Right now, my Alexa devices are working well and the Homepod is having all sorts of issues with recognizing my commands and/or long delays in responding to them. From my recent experience, it seems like Apple has modified the sensitivity of the Homepod so now my voice is not as easily picked up anymore. This was one of the big reasons why I preferred using it to my Echo devices.
After having so many troubles after the 15.4 update, and not having my camera sending me notifications after someone arrives, the last thing I want is to update it again and go through the same nightmare. I had to reset the mini pod 3 times, beside everything else connected to it. Siri works for what I need
Why it has to be so painful ?!
Why it has to be so painful ?!
What did you exactly say to HomePod Siri to silence the alarm on your iPhone? So far I've only been able to set and silence an alarm on the Homepod itself.
I must say, I understand why people don't like Siri that much. While it does recognises the spoken text very good, sometimes perfect. But really understanding is problematic. A few versions ago you could say "turn the light off" and the lights in the room where the Homepod was located are turned off. If you said "turn the lightS off" (plural) then the whole house was turned off. Now with Homepod version 15.4 you always need to say "turn the lights off" and the name of the room. Homepod Siri doesn't understand "in this room" even though the location is known.
Sometimes asking for a Homekit scene can suddenly result in a web search on my iPhone or an attempt to find a none-existent app on one of the AppleTV's. That can be very annoying.
I have problems with the "personal requests". The HomePod mini has no problem recognising each person in the house, but when my children ask for a playlist from their own account Siri is unable to find it. It always looks om my account. Even the person that is set as the primary user on specific HomePods still access my Apple Music library. But when that person asks Siri who's speaking then Siri answers correctly.
That sounds much like a local network problem. Its not uncommon that some wifi routers block some of the traffic between devices on the local network. Some don't even route properly between devices on 2,4GHz and others on 5GHz. Even small network switches can do bad things. Years ago I got this switch that didn't pass all traffic between 10M and 100M ethernet connectors. A serious circuit design fault that caused a lot of headages. And more recently I dumped a couple of Netgear switches (GS108 versions 1 en 2) that blocked some essential IPv6 traffic. Some mDNS / Bonjour traffic, but also random IPv6 internet traffic got blocked. When I contacted Netgear Support, they simply replied that the GS108 did not support IPv6. What the xxxx? That thing was supposed to be "dumb" and transparent for all kinds of network traffic. So I trashed them immediately and got a proper (and bigger) switch from Zyxel.
In my experience with a lot of Apple's Cloud services, when you have a slow internet connection it does help when you turn on iCloud caching on a Mac that is on the same network and is on for most of the day. It really does speed up many cloud things for all Homepods and other idevices on the network.
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I found that with Homepod Mini firmware updates and especially the first installation, it needs time to settle. Really just let it settle and don't fiddle with it for at least an hour. Whenever I got a new Homepod and did some setup directly after first installation, many options didn't appear or didn't work properly.
Also I prefer to let most Apple devices update automatically, which usually happens during the night or daytime when nobody is home. The only thing is that with Homepods you'll never know if they all will update around the same time or not. When that happens, the Thread network is (partly) offline for a while which can be annoying when you have lots of automation running over Thread.
I can’t remember for certain, but I think I just said “hey Siri can you turn off my alarm?”
I will say it does have understanding issues sometimes, but the voice recognition on HomePods is still the best I’ve ever experienced on any device. Very rarely a false wake up, and it will pick out your voice over very loud ambient noise.
Yup this is still happening. Funny thing is it finishes the automation. I have over 40 accessories. I opened a ticket with Apple months ago submitted logs and everything to engineering. Still haven’t fixed it. It use to work. It’s actually getting worse. Same command is flawless on my phone.
Super annoying. My tech has gone silent. Hope they’ll fix it at some point.
The funny thing about the HomePod actions for HomeKit is that something like the Wemo Scene Controller can make those things happen instantaneously. Hell, using Siri on your phone will work instantaneously too.
I don’t quite understand the disconnect going on with Siri HomeKit actions via HomePod.
I don’t quite understand the disconnect going on with Siri HomeKit actions via HomePod.
I agree. It might work well one hour but not at all the next hour. It might work pretty well one day but not the next day. I find myself using foul language when Siri is misbehaving. She says “I don’t know how to respond to that.”
I’ve rebooted, removed and reset everything several times; tried as many tricks as I have been able to think of, or read about, and nothing helps. I have tried different home routers thinking maybe poor Wi-Fi has something to do with it, but it doesn’t. It’s just bad software.
The lack of actual commands for Siri and the lack of Siri ability to do anything is amazing; for example when I had a my Galaxy S8 Bixby while cringe name could literally do everything, I can give bixby a password and it will unlock the phone, I can ask bixby to take screenshots, record the screen, give it commands to open a specific app or even open 2 apps in split screen in the phone. I am able to tell bixby in commands to make shortcuts, lower volume, close app. Then I switched to iPhone X because I wanted to join my family with iMessages and honestly while iMessage was an upgrade it was a huge downgrade until widgets came into play for iOS. Siri is a downgrade against Bixby; I use HomeKit for everything I hate the fact I ask my HomePod " hey Siri, turn on my room's light for 2 minutes " and Siri responds that it can't do that command. Come on Apple its literally just turn on a light for 2 minutes then back off again
Well, at least with the HomeKit stuff, it works on the iPhone or iPad pretty consistently but it is at best a coinflip on HomePods.
It seems like the HomePod OS itself is just not very good.
Indeed, the one in my kitchen easily distinguishes my voice commands from all the noise the appliances make. But that's on the English language setting. With the Dutch language its not that good. Still have to try Portugese.