HomePod HomePod can’t understand the word “the” in requests

[Greenie11]

I’ve been troubleshooting this for weeks and am getting nowhere. Recently my HomePod has started saying “I’m sorry I can’t find anything like that this time” when I ask it to turn off “the table lamp” (or any of my other hue bulbs around the house). Previously Siri understood this no problem. I have to rephrase the question in awkward English as “Turn off table lamp” and she will understand. It’s like she doesn’t understand the word “the” in front of device names any longer. Is anyone else experiencing this? I’m running iOS 13 on my iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV but, of course, it isn’t available for the HomePod yet.

Today I completely deleted my Home in HomeKit and set it up fresh. My other devices (literally everything other than HomePod) could understand the word “the” in requests just fine, until I setup the HomePod and re added it to the home. And then it started again. Even worse, once the HomePod is added, my individual devices (iPhone and iPad) stop understanding the word “the” in requests too. I’ve now gone through the Home app and added the word “The” to all my lamp names so it can understand the requests, but this shouldn’t be necessary and wasn’t previously.

Similarly, if I ask any of my other devices to turn off or pause my Apple TV (and the tv it is connected to via HDMI CEC) my iPhone and iPad will do this with no hesitation. The HomePod acts as if there is no Apple TV in the house and responds something along the lines of “nothing matches that description” or simply “Uh oh! Something’s wrong!”

Yes Siri. Something is definitely wrong. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Topfry]

I’ve been troubleshooting this for weeks and am getting nowhere. Recently my HomePod has started saying “I’m sorry I can’t find anything like that this time” when I ask it to turn off “the table lamp” (or any of my other hue bulbs around the house). Previously Siri understood this no problem. I have to rephrase the question in awkward English as “Turn off table lamp” and she will understand. It’s like she doesn’t understand the word “the” in front of device names any longer. Is anyone else experiencing this? I’m running iOS 13 on my iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV but, of course, it isn’t available for the HomePod yet.

Today I completely deleted my Home in HomeKit and set it up fresh. My other devices (literally everything other than HomePod) could understand the word “the” in requests just fine, until I setup the HomePod and re added it to the home. And then it started again. Even worse, once the HomePod is added, my individual devices (iPhone and iPad) stop understanding the word “the” in requests too. I’ve now gone through the Home app and added the word “The” to all my lamp names so it can understand the requests, but this shouldn’t be necessary and wasn’t previously.

Similarly, if I ask any of my other devices to turn off or pause my Apple TV (and the tv it is connected to via HDMI CEC) my iPhone and iPad will do this with no hesitation. The HomePod acts as if there is no Apple TV in the house and responds something along the lines of “nothing matches that description” or simply “Uh oh! Something’s wrong!”

Yes Siri. Something is definitely wrong. Anyone have any ideas?

Try asking to listen to the group “The The” on it; it’s a good way to test it out. I found saying ‘the’ as if your saying ‘them’ without the ‘m’ seemed to work. I really like the HomePod, but as far as Siri is concerned it does not compete with google at all.

 

[MacManTexas56]

I’ve been troubleshooting this for weeks and am getting nowhere. Recently my HomePod has started saying “I’m sorry I can’t find anything like that this time” when I ask it to turn off “the table lamp” (or any of my other hue bulbs around the house). Previously Siri understood this no problem. I have to rephrase the question in awkward English as “Turn off table lamp” and she will understand. It’s like she doesn’t understand the word “the” in front of device names any longer. Is anyone else experiencing this? I’m running iOS 13 on my iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV but, of course, it isn’t available for the HomePod yet.

Today I completely deleted my Home in HomeKit and set it up fresh. My other devices (literally everything other than HomePod) could understand the word “the” in requests just fine, until I setup the HomePod and re added it to the home. And then it started again. Even worse, once the HomePod is added, my individual devices (iPhone and iPad) stop understanding the word “the” in requests too. I’ve now gone through the Home app and added the word “The” to all my lamp names so it can understand the requests, but this shouldn’t be necessary and wasn’t previously.

Similarly, if I ask any of my other devices to turn off or pause my Apple TV (and the tv it is connected to via HDMI CEC) my iPhone and iPad will do this with no hesitation. The HomePod acts as if there is no Apple TV in the house and responds something along the lines of “nothing matches that description” or simply “Uh oh! Something’s wrong!”

Yes Siri. Something is definitely wrong. Anyone have any ideas?

I've had google homes, amazon echo's and now 6 homepod's around the house. I completely got rid of google and amazon and strictly go with apple now. In my testing over the years, i found it easier to just say the phrase "table lamp off" instead of saying "turn off the table lamp". I'd always have problems if i said it the way you are saying things so i switched it up and haven't ever had an issue since then. I try to keep it short as possible, even leaving out things like lamp unless there's more than 1. So for the couch lamp, i end up just saying "couch off" instead of saying "turn off the couch lamp". I've noticed over the years that these so called AI are not really that intelligent after all lol.