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HomePod HomePod not hearing "Hey Siri" commands

T

Tsurara

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 8, 2010
30
1
NYC
Hi All,

I bought a HomePod about 3 months ago and have been having an annoying/persistent issue that I would love feedback on.

We are getting inconsistent behavior when trying to use "Hey Siri" with the HomePod. We have to be very close for Hey Siri to activate and sometimes say the command multiple times for the speaker to listen, if we are any further away than ~6 feet, it doesn't listen unless we are nearly screaming.

The HomePod is on 12.1.1, and is placed on a table in the middle of our living room, which is open to the rest of our condo.

Does anyone have any idea on what might be going on? Is there a way to "re-train" "Hey Siri"?
 
The HomePod can hear a quiet voice from across the room with music playing so there's something wrong.
As far as I know it can't be trained since it is not performing speaker identification like the iPhone.

Have you tried unplug/plug?

If that doesn't work, then reset? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208244

If both fail it seems defective.
 
Tsurara said:
Yep, done both...
Click to expand...
I’ve had the same problem every few months. I suspect it’s to do with acoustics, where “hey Siri” gets reflected back from several directions which muffles the clarity of the sound. This is unfortnate for me because the ideal place for mine is also the worst acoustically. I can stand outside the room and speak and it hears me fine, but can stand a few feet away and it can struggle. I found rotating the HomePod can make a difference.
If you take it back let us know how it goes. My concern with mine, if it is defective, is that I won’t be able to reproduce the issue in store because it is intermittent. Also bear in mind that if it has been on standby for a while it can sometimes take some time to wake properly.
 
Mine won't hear me every few weeks and I will have to unplug it. Can't figure out why but I am pretty sure it never happened until the last update.
 
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Yes, we invested in the HomePod with all the holiday specials, but I was so tired of the lack of response, not to mention inaccurate responses when it did hear. I ended up returning them to Best Buy. We purchased another speaker system and using it with echo dot 3's which have worked flawlessly since day one. While it also gets things wrong occasionally, overall it does much better and one of my biggest things is being able to set a freaking sleep timer where it stops playing music. How on earth can Apple not have this built into Siri. Don't get me wrong they sound good and if you can't deal with the lack of response and often times confusion then great. But after spending a grand to invest in these things.. I was able to get what we all feel is a much better setup that actually sounds better at 1/4th cost even at the HomePod's holiday sale price.
 
MacintoshDan said:
Mine won't hear me every few weeks and I will have to unplug it. Can't figure out why but I am pretty sure it never happened until the last update.
Click to expand...
Yeah i have the same issue with both my Homepods. Every couple of weeks, they just stop responding. Switching them off and back on after 20 seconds seems to resolve the problem.
 
I am convinced it was the last software update, one day when it happens again I ll try getting on the line with support.
 
Please log feedback with Apple and request a reboot option for the HomePod. I’ve done so. Please list why you need the reboot option. I think there’s a memory leak in the software that eventually causes the problem.
 
If I don't use mine for a while, they lose response. Have to turn wifi on and off. Just did it and got a loud pop, and then Siri woke up, took a few minutes. annoying. Give us a wired connection and remote.
 
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