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Apple Releases HomePod 15.4.1 Software With Siri Fix

It is pretty cool how personal requests from HomePods for any 3rd party app just about never works...which kinda defeats the point of a kitchen homepod to add stuff to a list on Bring.
 
seatton said:
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.
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I have the same issue! If I remove them from apple tv, they work fine.
 
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Whenever I ask Siri on my HomePods for the details of the currently playing track, it always give details of one of the previous ones. I then have to ask again to get the correct details. This started with 15.4 and happens on all of my HomePods. This is using Apple Music. Anyone else?
 
Relying too much on HomeKit device software, a bad idea. The smarts need to be in a bridge device with few firmware options at the end point. The larger the HomeKit device numbers the more headache with current implementation. Add multiple vendor devices, migraine.
 
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Powerbooky said:
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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So Apple builds devices that will only work on the most expensive network implementation. A big majority of home users today, use the internet provided modem and router. I have this setup with mesh option. HomeKit and Siri are terrible. However, same network, Sonos never fails. Also very few problems with the cheapest Amazon devices. The most expensive Apple devices, terrible. Would I blame the network? Let’s put it this way. I will look at fixing the network when Apple devices perform the same as my other systems. If Apple insists the network so necessary, why in the heck did they quit building Apple routers?
 
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Nothing really fixed. IMO, has become even worse.
— Hey, Siri. Switch off the AC
— Ok. I'm setting your AC to auto.
— WTF?
 
npmacuser5 said:
Relying too much on HomeKit device software, a bad idea. The smarts need to be in a bridge device with few firmware options at the end point. The larger the HomeKit device numbers the more headache with current implementation. Add multiple vendor devices, migraine.
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That's why my home is independent and I only expose the devices I want to homekit. As soon as voice assistants are truly local, I'll just weather Siri.
 
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HomePod Siri is beyond a sick joke at this stage. Apple is very clearly f* ing with us. Each update is worse than the last.
The fact that the release notes for this one state “Siri fix” is just rubbing it in.

I have 5 OGs and 2 Minis, with excellent home Wi-Fi and networking (enterprise grade), with synchronous gigabit internet, and still Siri on the HomePod is unusable.

Everything works fine from an iPhone… shortcuts, Siri commands, HomeKit scenes, all action instantly.
Anything from HomePod using Siri, hot garbage.
Pathetic.
 
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Siri before was always "Taking too long to respond" or something would fail to respond on iOS 14-15.4. Finally, is now working 100% of the time like Alexa. Have multi Apple TV 4K 2021's, HomePod Mini's, Nanoleafs. Seriously was driving me crazy!!!
 
Peen said:
Siri before was always "Taking too long to respond" or something would fail to respond on iOS 14-15.4. Finally, is now working 100% of the time like Alexa. Have multi Apple TV 4K 2021's, HomePod Mini's, Nanoleafs. Seriously was driving me crazy!!!
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It is the opposite for me unfortunately.. today - timer, grocery add... I have to push a side button on my iPhone to summon her instead.
 
seatton said:
It is the opposite for me unfortunately.. today - timer, grocery add... I have to push a side button on my iPhone to summon her instead.
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Same thing for me. Hey Siri, set a timer for 10 minutes. "Hang on, still trying, this is taking a bit too long." Hey Siri, add butter to the shopping list. "And a good day to you too!" FML...such an embarrassment. 3000 square foot home with Eero 6 mesh router and three Eero 6 repeaters running latest firmware. Every Apple device running latest release.
 
I was having the same issues but with Ubiquiti AP's all hardwired, Gigabit, pfSense. With 15.4.1 , finally haven't had any issues. As a network/Cyber engineer, so I knew it wasn't the network in this case.
 
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McScooby said:
It's gone from saying "your device is taking time to respond" to now saying it's on when it isn't, the home app still has a 20-30 sec delay in turning stuff on, grrrrrr!
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Sorry to hear that. My HomePod auto updated and luckily I haven't had that issue.
 
Not related to Siri per se but using Homepods, a Mac with my Music Library and Airplay has been a complete s..t show over the last few years. Trying to start playing music on several homepods via the remote app is laughably bad. Most of the time certain homepods won't show up in the Airplay options, etc. I have to go to the Homekit app to select the Homepod so they start playing something random from the music library and then go back to the airplay list of the remote app. If I am lucky, the respective Homepod is then listed. Pathetic.
 
Burger Thing said:
Not related to Siri per se but using Homepods, a Mac with my Music Library and Airplay has been a complete s..t show over the last few years. Trying to start playing music on several homepods via the remote app is laughably bad. Most of the time certain homepods won't show up in the Airplay options, etc. I have to go to the Homekit app to select the Homepod so they start playing something random from the music library and then go back to the airplay list of the remote app. If I am lucky, the respective Homepod is then listed. Pathetic.
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That sounds like an mDNS/multicast/Bonjour problem. In fact I'd put money on it.
What network equipment are you using?
 
adammusic said:
LET US USE A DIFFERENT WAKE WORD THAN SIRI

MY HOMEPOD MINI IN THE OTHER ROOM ACTIVATES WHEN SAYING HEY SIRI TO MY PHONE RIGHT NEXT TO MY FACE.

solved by giving us wake words options like alexa has done since what 2010.


COME ON
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This would fix an issue I have. But I’ve just stopped saying “hey” to my fiancée. Her name is close to ‘Siri’ and if I’m calling her from another room for assistance or a question I tend to get the “mm hmm?” from our HomePods.
 
Please allow us to turn off the vocal confirmations for simple commands. If the music is playing, you don’t have to tell me the music is now playing.
 
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