4 ms·

It's funny, but for years I've felt like "Hey Siri, set an alarm for 7am" was 1000x easier than using the clunky Clock UI and it's almost exclusively what I use

It's funny, but for years I've felt like "Hey Siri, set an alarm for 7am" was 1000x easier than using the clunky Clock UI and it's almost exclusively what I use Siri for. Tasks that are so perfectly well-defined are exactly what this "smart" tech is useful for. Except that recently, Siri screwed me. I said "hey Siri, set an alarm for 6:30am" and her response was "Ok, your 6:30am alarm is on," but what she actually meant was "Ok, I ensured that your standing alarm for every tuesday at 6:30am is on" which meant she wasn't enabling the alarm for 6:30am tomorrow, so I overslept. Very annoying and completely blew my trust in a very useful function.

tsm 6y ago
On the google side, "wake me up at 7" results in a 7AM alarm 95% of the time and a 7 PM alarm the other 5%. Just frequent enough to screw you over…
drunkpotato 6y ago
Alarms and reminders are my most frequent uses of Siri (and to entertain/frustrate the kids...). It's also pretty good for hands-free quick texts while driving and hands-free calling, though I don't do those often. Your alarm example is frustrating. Of course, you could say "set alarm for tomorrow at 6:30 am" which would work, but then you're back in the realm not of natural language commands, but formal commands that exist in the uncanny valley, just similar enough to natural language to be irritating when they fail.
- heleninboodler 6y ago
  Yeah, I would think it would be obvious to most humans that "set an alarm for 6:30am" never means "6:30am four days from now." It seems like it should just be interpreted as the next occurring 6:30am unless otherwise specified, but hey, I'm not a computer. Edit: also, your "tomorrow at 6:30am" example is also open to interpretation if you're saying it two minutes after midnight. I'd really like it to recognize these sort of ambiguities and prompt me for clarification. "It's after midnight. By 'tomorrow at 6:30am', do you mean you want your alarm to go off about 6 hours from now or the next day?"
  - dheera 6y ago
    ... and this is exactly the sort of thing where I feel much more comfortable looking at a GUI that clearly says the date, day, and time all in one place. It would take me 2 seconds to verify that it's exactly as I want it instead of parsing a voice assistant's response.
  - toyg 6y ago
    Siri does resolve that ambiguity, it will ask you “do you mean 6.30am on day X, or 6.30 am on day Y?”, using weekday names for good measure. That’s actually one thing they got pretty well.
fantod 6y ago
Agreed, I find this to be a great use case for voice assistants. Or on the occasion I feel like napping after lunch "Hey Siri, wake me up in an hour".
nottorp 6y ago
Ouch. I just did a quickie test asking Siri to set me a reminder for 'tomorrow at eighteen'. No dice. It set it for 8 am. It doesn't even support 24 hour time - at least in English.
- mikestew 6y ago
  "...set an alarm for tomorrow @ eighteen hundred." works just fine. At least in U. S. English, I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to 6 p. m. as "eighteen".
  - shpx 6y ago
    but you would still understand them if they did or take 5 seconds to ask a clarifying question.
    - mikestew 6y ago
      I live in Redmond, WA. Frankly, if someone asked to meet for a meal at eighteen, I would assume they would like to get together in a Microsoft cafeteria closest to the (what I believe to be non-existent) Building 18. My backup option would be to assume that they have received a hard blow to the head at some point in their life. Again, whether I would understand them or not, no one to my knowledge speaks like that in U. S. English. It is a great example to use to show the quirks of language. It is a bad example to use to show that Siri "doesn't even support 24 hour time - at least in English".
      - nottorp 6y ago
        I'm not English. We don't say eighteen hundred for 18:00, we say just eighteen. And I don't have localized Siri. And in any case i said eighteen not eight a m.
      - justinlloyd 6y ago
        Officially building 18 does not exist. Anything you may have heard about building 18 is just rumour. If you have any questions regarding the purpose of building 18, you should direct them to Shelley in HR.

tsm 6y ago

On the google side, "wake me up at 7" results in a 7AM alarm 95% of the time and a 7 PM alarm the other 5%. Just frequent enough to screw you over…

drunkpotato 6y ago

Alarms and reminders are my most frequent uses of Siri (and to entertain/frustrate the kids...). It's also pretty good for hands-free quick texts while driving and hands-free calling, though I don't do those often. Your alarm example is frustrating. Of course, you could say "set alarm for tomorrow at 6:30 am" which would work, but then you're back in the realm not of natural language commands, but formal commands that exist in the uncanny valley, just similar enough to natural language to be irritating when they fail.

heleninboodler 6y ago
Yeah, I would think it would be obvious to most humans that "set an alarm for 6:30am" never means "6:30am four days from now." It seems like it should just be interpreted as the next occurring 6:30am unless otherwise specified, but hey, I'm not a computer. Edit: also, your "tomorrow at 6:30am" example is also open to interpretation if you're saying it two minutes after midnight. I'd really like it to recognize these sort of ambiguities and prompt me for clarification. "It's after midnight. By 'tomorrow at 6:30am', do you mean you want your alarm to go off about 6 hours from now or the next day?"
- dheera 6y ago
  ... and this is exactly the sort of thing where I feel much more comfortable looking at a GUI that clearly says the date, day, and time all in one place. It would take me 2 seconds to verify that it's exactly as I want it instead of parsing a voice assistant's response.
- toyg 6y ago
  Siri does resolve that ambiguity, it will ask you “do you mean 6.30am on day X, or 6.30 am on day Y?”, using weekday names for good measure. That’s actually one thing they got pretty well.

fantod 6y ago

Agreed, I find this to be a great use case for voice assistants. Or on the occasion I feel like napping after lunch "Hey Siri, wake me up in an hour".

nottorp 6y ago

Ouch. I just did a quickie test asking Siri to set me a reminder for 'tomorrow at eighteen'. No dice. It set it for 8 am. It doesn't even support 24 hour time - at least in English.

mikestew 6y ago
"...set an alarm for tomorrow @ eighteen hundred." works just fine. At least in U. S. English, I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to 6 p. m. as "eighteen".
- shpx 6y ago
  but you would still understand them if they did or take 5 seconds to ask a clarifying question.
  - mikestew 6y ago
    I live in Redmond, WA. Frankly, if someone asked to meet for a meal at eighteen, I would assume they would like to get together in a Microsoft cafeteria closest to the (what I believe to be non-existent) Building 18. My backup option would be to assume that they have received a hard blow to the head at some point in their life. Again, whether I would understand them or not, no one to my knowledge speaks like that in U. S. English. It is a great example to use to show the quirks of language. It is a bad example to use to show that Siri "doesn't even support 24 hour time - at least in English".
    - nottorp 6y ago
      I'm not English. We don't say eighteen hundred for 18:00, we say just eighteen. And I don't have localized Siri. And in any case i said eighteen not eight a m.
    - justinlloyd 6y ago
      Officially building 18 does not exist. Anything you may have heard about building 18 is just rumour. If you have any questions regarding the purpose of building 18, you should direct them to Shelley in HR.