Hands Free Siri - Why does the phone have to be plugged in?

[Apple_Robert]

Unless I am missing something, your iPhone has to be plugged in to a power source, in order to make use of hands free Siri. What good is that? Plugging the phone into a power source for hands free is not always available much less practical.

What is the reasoning behind limiting this feature like this?

 

[Stuke00]

Unless I am missing something, your iPhone has to be plugged in to a power source, in order to make use of hands free Siri. What good is that? Plugging the phone into a power source for hands free is not always available much less practical.

What is the reasoning behind limiting this feature like this?

To keep the microphone from always running and listening perhaps? Since Siri requires an internet connection, I can see this being a battery drain.

 

[Apple_Robert]

To keep the microphone from always running and listening perhaps? Since Siri requires an internet connection, I can see this being a battery drain.

Yes, it could be a drain if someone didn't close properly etc.

I just found it frustrating yesterday, when I tried to use hands free and wasn't able to. It would have been nice to be able to say "hey Siri..." when I was out and about or even driving, without having to remove my hands or eyes from what I was doing.

 

[Stuke00]

Yes, it could be a drain if someone didn't close properly etc.

I just found it frustrating yesterday, when I tried to use hands free and wasn't able to. It would have been nice to be able to say "hey Siri..." when I was out and about or even driving, without having to remove my hands or eyes from what I was doing.

That is what car chargers are for

 

[shandyman]

Yes, it could be a drain if someone didn't close properly etc.



I just found it frustrating yesterday, when I tried to use hands free and wasn't able to. It would have been nice to be able to say "hey Siri..." when I was out and about or even driving, without having to remove my hands or eyes from what I was doing.

It works by having the microphone on all the time, this uses power. That is the sole reason for it. There's no 'closing it properly' issue.

 

[piller97]

Keeping SIRI active (and in turn the microphone and internet connection), requires a large amount of battery.

So much so that it would be quite impractical to run it without being connected to a charger as the battery-life would be nothing like what it is normally.


It actually requires so much power that I found it was slowing down the charge of my phone....I can't be 100% certain, but when I had the feature enabled it seemed like my charge time was nothing compared to my usual, and this stopped upon disabling the feature......

 

[DoctorFedora]

Plus it works on the assumption that if it's plugged in, you probably don't have it on hand and thus wouldn't be able to just activate it the usual way(s), along with preventing anyone from saying "hey Siri" and activating every iPhone in the area.

 

[SimonTheSoundMa]

It's hardware. Phones such as the HTC One has a function built in the CPU that allows it to aways listen and use minimal battery charge. iPhone's do not have this.

 

[phillytim]

So the "Raise to speak" for Siri seems to be gone now, for this???

 

[shandyman]

Keeping SIRI active (and in turn the microphone and internet connection), requires a large amount of battery.



So much so that it would be quite impractical to run it without being connected to a charger as the battery-life would be nothing like what it is normally.





It actually requires so much power that I found it was slowing down the charge of my phone....I can't be 100% certain, but when I had the feature enabled it seemed like my charge time was nothing compared to my usual, and this stopped upon disabling the feature......

It's funny that people seem to forget that things use power, rather than magically working

 

[Xenc]

To keep the microphone from always running and listening perhaps? Since Siri requires an internet connection, I can see this being a battery drain.

The initial "Hey Siri" command doesn't require internet access.

So the "Raise to speak" for Siri seems to be gone now, for this???

"Raise to speak" was axed so that it doesn't cause confusion with "raise to reply" for iMessages.

 

[shandyman]

The initial "Hey Siri" command doesn't require internet access.

It's more mic usage for power. Although It'll have to process all sounds to determine what's being said. We don't know if 'hey siri' is being processed locally or if it's being processed remotely like the rest of siri.

 

[Xenc]

We don't know if 'hey siri' is being processed locally or if it's being processed remotely like the rest of siri.

It's processed locally since it's a wake up command. Siri responds with an error message when you don't have a connection.

 

[afsnyder]

It's hardware. Phones such as the HTC One has a function built in the CPU that allows it to aways listen and use minimal battery charge. iPhone's do not have this.

No not HTC One, Moto X. All other Android phones that support it on the home screen and on any app is just adding another battery drain but since the screens take so much power anyway, its not too big of a deal in that case.

 

[shandyman]

It's processed locally since it's a wake up command. Siri responds with an error message when you don't have a connection.

Hadn't thought about testing it that way. anyway, keeping the mic active was always the obvious reason for it being a 'plugged in only' feature due to the drain on battery over time.