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Siri and raising phone to ear

B

bobcpa

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 18, 2009
24
5
Siri is supposed to be automatically engaged when you raise the phone to your ear. Apparently, there is a motion sensor in the phone that detects the movement of raising the phone to your ear.

Unfortunately, I have had just intermittant success with this as Siri sometimes does not come on. I am forced to manually push the home button in order to activate Siri.

Anyone else have this issue? Could this be resolved by re-booting the phone?

Thank you.
 
Works 8/10... All you have to do is pick it up and pretend your answering a call without saying hello and you should be good!
 
It's the proximity sensor (above the earpiece speaker) that is sensing when you put the phone to your ear. Be sure it is not covered by a case or even a screen protector that is blocking the infrared light that it emits. :cool:
 
Givmeabrek said:
It's the proximity sensor (above the earpiece speaker) that is sensing when you put the phone to your ear. Be sure it is not covered by a case or even a screen protector that is blocking the infrared light that it emits. :cool:
Click to expand...

It also uses the accelerometer and maybe the gyroscope too because if put down the iPhone flat on a table and cover the proximity sensor with your finger nothing happens... You really have to pick it up like you were answering the phone
 
Yeah I was just wondering about this today too. It only works sometimes for me. I found that if I toggle the switch in the preferences pane to turn on and off the raise to Siri feature then it seems to work better for a while. Once it starts working it seems to get on a roll and I have no trouble for a while.
 
Ok I told my blind wife about it and it does not work for her. but if I take her phone it works fine. no clue why.
 
One thing I have learned is to make sure you don't touch the screen with your ear. So just put the phone up to your ear and make sure your ear isn't touching the screen. After figuring this out, it works 9/10 times for me.
 
It works so well that it's annoying when you try to listen to a voicemail and Siri activates when you raise the phone to your ear. I either have to disable the feature temporarily or listen to voicemails through the speakerphone.
 
southerndoc said:
It works so well that it's annoying when you try to listen to a voicemail and Siri activates when you raise the phone to your ear. I either have to disable the feature temporarily or listen to voicemails through the speakerphone.
Click to expand...

same issue here. i am on edge sometimes so it takes a few seconds to get VM started. i just wait till it starts playing and then put the phone up to my ear.
 
Raise to Ear Function of Siri

An interesting twist to this ongoing issue: I have the white 4s. 1 week old. If I hold and lift the phone with my left hand to my left ear, it works every time. Right hand to righr ear = about 1-10 times. I believe that the gyro or whatever motion sensor in this phone is mounted in such a way that the tilt of the phone with the left top side of the phone moving downwards enables Siri more dependably. I have tried everything I could think of: fast moves, more exaggerated tilt to the right ear, staring at the screen first, shaking it while moving, etc. etc.
It appears that the activation improves if I do a warm boot of the phone, but only for a while. Warm boot = turn off the phone, wait a few seconds, hold the Home button down while pushing the power button until it turns on. I called Verizon and they are willing to send me a new phone, but I doubt that a new phone will behave any differently. Further, I suspect that Apple will be fine tuning Siri and releasing an update that may solve all our issues regarding the Raise to Ear activation.
 
I just got my iPhone 4S today and did some experimenting with Siri.

To get it activated successfully using the raise to speak feature, it's all in the wrist.

Give the phone a little bit quicker flick and it should work every time. Think: the woman / man of my dreams is calling. Make that motion.
 
I have had my phone for three months and this feature has not worked for me, not even once. (and yes, I do have the option for raise to speak selected under Siri preferences)
 
Tyler23 said:
I have had my phone for three months and this feature has not worked for me, not even once. (and yes, I do have the option for raise to speak selected under Siri preferences)
Click to expand...

You have a defect. Make an appointment with a genius and have it replaced. Siri is a great feature on the 4s. Your selling yourself short by not doing anything about it for 3 months.
 
Peanut207 said:
You have a defect. Make an appointment with a genius and have it replaced. Siri is a great feature on the 4s. Your selling yourself short by not doing anything about it for 3 months.
Click to expand...

Well I don't have Applecare, and it has been three months so I don't think a replacement is in the cards for me unfortunately..

I don't use Siri as much as I used to, now just use it when i'm too lazy to manually set an alarm or enter a reminder..but it would still be nice to have all the features of my phone working as they should
 
Figured it out

Ok guys. I think I got it. I found this thread from googling "Siri 'to ear' not working sometimes" It was very intermittent for me. But now I got it working 10/10 times. Just make sure that your starting position has your phone FLAT. Basically have your screen run parallel to the ceiling. Then just swoop it up so the screen is now perpendicular to the ceiling. This now works everytime for me. Just hoped someone would get the 'ah hah' moment from this info.

Thanks
 
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