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My biggest problem with the homepod is that my 5 year old has learned that he can turn on _any song he wants_ whenever he wants by yelling "hey siri." He loves

by brd529 8y ago

My biggest problem with the homepod is that my 5 year old has learned that he can turn on _any song he wants_ whenever he wants by yelling "hey siri." He loves it! He yells at the dinner table, when his little sister is asleep, and when we are on the phone. His favorite phrase is "Hey Siri, set volume to 100%." His favorite song is the PJ Masks song, which Siri dutifully plays when called upon. Every. Single. Time. I'd love it if HomePod recognized who was speaking, but I'd settle for Siri just recognizing "this is a kids voice" and ignoring it!

aaronmiler 8y ago
I feel like this is a big missing piece for voice activated things. I've got an Echo device ~10ft from my TV, and it gets activated from Netflix (Parks & Rec mostly... I blame Rob Lowe) all the time. I should be able to go into the app and label it as a false activation so it can ignore it in the future
- Art9681 8y ago
  The app already has a feature for that. It will keep a list of all the times it was activated and a recording you can play back of what phrase activated it. You can also tap a button to send feedback if it activated with the wrong phrase.
Endama 8y ago
I'm sorry, this warmed my heart and terrified me at the same time. A hilariously adorable and obnoxious use of technology.
StephenMelon 8y ago
Unfortunately “Hey Siri” starts to grate the 70th time you say it in 3 days. I would actually now rather walk across the room to touch the Homepod than have to say the phrase so much. It’s still in uncanny valley territory a lot of the time as it isn’t smart enough to keep context between interactions or react in a human-like way. I think a retroactive activation feature would be the way to go, ie. be able to say “Siri” at the end of a sentence and have it parse the phrase that came before. It feels more natural to say “skip this please Siri” than “Hey Siri, skip” because it lets you amend the mistake of not identifying the subject earlier in the sentence rather than the phrase-exasperation-hey Siri-phrase. I asked Siri to DJ and my daughter said “hey Siri, I don’t like that song”. Siri said “I’ll remember that” and played something else. Now I have no idea how to amend Siri’s notion that I dislike one of my favourite tracks. There should really be a Homepod app where you can see recent interactions and correct misinterpreted ones. There are also some artists and tracks with unusual spellings that are always going to cause problems for a voice interface and so they need a solution for that.
- crooked-v 8y ago
  Something about "Hey Siri, ..." is much more grating to me to say than "Alexa, ...". Maybe it's just that conjunction of phonemes being rare in English?
  - 2bitencryption 8y ago
    That's nothing compared to "Okay Google". Try saying that three times fast. Actually, try saying it just once fast. I always end up spitting out something like "Okaygggeellggglle"
    - PerfectElement 8y ago
      You can say "Hey Google".
      - ExactoKnight 8y ago
        The "Hey" gets extremely grating after the fifth time in a row. Amazon has it right on this with Alexa.
    - ExactoKnight 8y ago
      It's utterly astonishing that Google still has the hubris not to give it a personal name. People want to believe they're talking to a personal assistant, even if that isn't true, and Google is stupidly stripping them of that.
      - millstone 8y ago
        I think it’s just a branding thing. Notice how e.g. the app is named “Google Chrome” (but not “Mozilla Firefox”).
        ExactoKnight 8y ago
        But in this case it doesn't work. I don't repeat the name "Chrome" 20 times a day like I will for a Google Home. This is a serious f*cking flaw and it actually makes me worry for Google's stock price that they can't see how obvious of a problem this is and/or are too paralyzed to fix it.

by brd529 8y ago

aaronmiler 8y ago

I feel like this is a big missing piece for voice activated things. I've got an Echo device ~10ft from my TV, and it gets activated from Netflix (Parks & Rec mostly... I blame Rob Lowe) all the time. I should be able to go into the app and label it as a false activation so it can ignore it in the future

Art9681 8y ago
The app already has a feature for that. It will keep a list of all the times it was activated and a recording you can play back of what phrase activated it. You can also tap a button to send feedback if it activated with the wrong phrase.

Endama 8y ago

I'm sorry, this warmed my heart and terrified me at the same time. A hilariously adorable and obnoxious use of technology.

StephenMelon 8y ago

Unfortunately “Hey Siri” starts to grate the 70th time you say it in 3 days. I would actually now rather walk across the room to touch the Homepod than have to say the phrase so much. It’s still in uncanny valley territory a lot of the time as it isn’t smart enough to keep context between interactions or react in a human-like way. I think a retroactive activation feature would be the way to go, ie. be able to say “Siri” at the end of a sentence and have it parse the phrase that came before. It feels more natural to say “skip this please Siri” than “Hey Siri, skip” because it lets you amend the mistake of not identifying the subject earlier in the sentence rather than the phrase-exasperation-hey Siri-phrase. I asked Siri to DJ and my daughter said “hey Siri, I don’t like that song”. Siri said “I’ll remember that” and played something else. Now I have no idea how to amend Siri’s notion that I dislike one of my favourite tracks. There should really be a Homepod app where you can see recent interactions and correct misinterpreted ones. There are also some artists and tracks with unusual spellings that are always going to cause problems for a voice interface and so they need a solution for that.

crooked-v 8y ago
Something about "Hey Siri, ..." is much more grating to me to say than "Alexa, ...". Maybe it's just that conjunction of phonemes being rare in English?
- 2bitencryption 8y ago
  That's nothing compared to "Okay Google". Try saying that three times fast. Actually, try saying it just once fast. I always end up spitting out something like "Okaygggeellggglle"
  - PerfectElement 8y ago
    You can say "Hey Google".
    - ExactoKnight 8y ago
      The "Hey" gets extremely grating after the fifth time in a row. Amazon has it right on this with Alexa.
  - ExactoKnight 8y ago
    It's utterly astonishing that Google still has the hubris not to give it a personal name. People want to believe they're talking to a personal assistant, even if that isn't true, and Google is stupidly stripping them of that.
    - millstone 8y ago
      I think it’s just a branding thing. Notice how e.g. the app is named “Google Chrome” (but not “Mozilla Firefox”).
      - ExactoKnight 8y ago
        But in this case it doesn't work. I don't repeat the name "Chrome" 20 times a day like I will for a Google Home. This is a serious f*cking flaw and it actually makes me worry for Google's stock price that they can't see how obvious of a problem this is and/or are too paralyzed to fix it.