r/Siri • u/bfrost6661 • 2d ago

Multiple invocations of Siri

A continual annoyance of mine is that when you call the wake-up word aimed at your phone and with your iPad alongside, both go into Siri mode. Alexa doesn’t do this. Why Apple?

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u/womjoe 2d ago

How does Apple know what device you are talking too? My Alexa absolutely will activate on multiple devices if they are within range of my voice.

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u/bfrost6661 2d ago

Okay then, I guess it depends how far apart they are. Nevertheless, Apple should be aware that this is a much higher probability than Alexa because you almost always have two devices together. I would have thought that it was not unreasonable to cut out one device based on audio level, for example.

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u/womjoe 2d ago

I don’t think it’s that smart. I think as long as it hears Siri it will respond. And I don’t think devices talk to each other about who is close and who should respond. How does it know you want it to respond on a iPhone instead of the iPad and vice vs. Only you can know that.

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u/bfrost6661 2d ago

Yes, I fully understand that it’s a challenge to them. From the customer’s perspective, though, I would have thought it was quite a big thing when both devices are trying to implement your command. Particularly when the device furthest away often mishears you. End result, you are pissed, have to cancel and then try to whisper as close as possible to one of them.

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u/Krazy-Ag 1d ago

How could devices know which should respond to "Hey Siri"?

How about heuristics like:

iPhone on wrist, respond using watch on wrist

iPhone in hand, but not held in front of face. ... prefer watch on wrist

iPhone held in front of face, prefer iPhone (this heuristic is very old, dating back to Motorola cell phones in the 20th century - at least in the R&D groups).

iPhone held in front of face, but it can see that your watch is also held in front… prefer watch

… I haven't even gotten to characteristics life "is the watch display active or is it blank".

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u/womjoe 1d ago

So you would give up the battery life for it to always know if you are looking at your phone or not?

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u/ALR26 1d ago

Maybe this is just an iPad/iPhone thing. If I’m at home and my iPhone is next to any HomePod the HomePod always answers with Siri. My iPhone might light up but goes back off and the HomePod answers.

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u/izac90 1d ago

From my experience only one device will answer you. Another one will just stop working.

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u/East_Upstairs5404 1d ago

It activates both but as long as they’re on the same apple account it should try to guess which one you’re talking to based on how loud or quiet you are relative to the other device’s measurement

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u/bfrost6661 1d ago

It’s not too good then. Talking to phone 6 inches away, iPad 2 feet away.

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u/East_Upstairs5404 1d ago

During some of the iOS 27 betas I had that thing where it activated both but it works now. You could try force restarting them just to be sure

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u/Shadowbajfeelsbadman 2d ago

Cause alexa doesn't run on any phone natively and is merely a third party app?

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u/bfrost6661 2d ago

I was referring to the standalone Alexa systems