Whether you’re in the car or your iPhone is halfway across the room, sometimes it’s not practical (or safe) to lay hands on your device just so you can talk to it. Most newer Apple devices, including all Apple Watches and HomePods, make it easy to get your digital assistant’s attention by calling out “Hey Siri!” To find out if your iOS device supports voice activation, see Which iPhones and iPads Recognize “Hey Siri”?. Apple TV does not support voice activation, but a handful of the newest Macs do.
Use “Hey Siri” on Your iPhone or iPad
To enable “Hey Siri” on your iPhone or iPad, tap Settings > Siri & Search and slide the “Listen for ‘Hey Siri’” button to on. The first time you do this, you’re asked to train Siri to recognize your voice (Figure 15). Tap Continue and follow the prompts to do so.
Figure 15: Train your iPad or iPhone to pick your voice—and only your voice—out of the crowd.
Next, tap Settings > Siri & Search and set Allow Siri When Locked to on (Figure 16).
Figure 16: Adjust a few of your iOS device’s settings to make it possible to hail Siri with your voice. (iPhone X shown here.)
You must leave the Allow Siri When Locked setting on to use “Hey Siri.” See Should You Enable Siri from the Lock Screen? for a discussion of how to handle the security tradeoffs that come with doing this.
Once you’re set up, just say “Hey Siri” followed immediately by your question or request and your iOS device snaps to attention. If you can’t get your iPad or iPhone to listen, make sure it’s face up, its case is open, and that it isn’t in Low Power Mode. If it’s an older device, it might need to be plugged in. See the next sidebar.
Use “Hey Siri” on Your Apple Watch
If you want to be able to activate Siri by voice on your watch, go to Settings > General > Siri and slide the Hey Siri button to on. Note that you’ll need to wake up your watch by tapping or raising it before you make your request.
If you have an Apple Watch series 3 or 4, you’ll see another setting here—“Raise to Speak” (Figure 17). This feature lets you skip the “Hey Siri” passphrase and just raise your watch and start talking. I’ve found it to be more finicky than the “Hey Siri” trigger phrase, however, and usually have to bring the watch right next to my mouth before it activates. Experiment to see what works for you. This feature is less likely to work if you’re in a loud environment.
Figure 17: The Apple Watch (series 3 or 4) gives you two options for activating Siri without having to press and hold the Digital Crown.
Use “Hey Siri” on Your HomePod
Voice activation is on by default for your HomePod and is the primary way you’re meant to interact with the device (hence the lack of buttons). No additional set up is required. There’s not an option to train the HomePod to recognize one voice, so all members of your household can use it. (The children thank you, Apple.)
You can turn voice activation off by saying “Hey Siri, turn off Hey Siri.” Siri warns you that you need to activate the HomePod manually from now on. (See Trigger Siri by Touch on HomePod.) This might come in handy when you’re having a party, for instance, and want to make it a little harder for guests to hijack the playlist.
Alternatively, you can use the Home app to adjust the setting. On your iOS device, long press (tap and hold) the device name and then tap Settings. Scroll down and slide the “Listen for ‘Hey Siri’” setting to off (Figure 18). On the Mac, Control- or right-click on the device in the Home app, select Settings, and then toggle the “Listen for ‘Hey Siri’” setting to off. (Turn it back on from here, too.)
Figure 18: Voice activation is on by default for the HomePod. Turn it off or make adjustments to other Siri settings in the Home app on your iOS device (shown here) or Mac.
You can also tweak how Siri on your HomePod responds to you here by sliding the “Light When Using Siri” and the “Sound When Using Siri” settings on or off, depending on what kind of feedback you want your HomePod to give you when Siri has heard the “Hey Siri” trigger. The feedback sound—off by default—can be helpful if your HomePod sits on a shelf above eye level or you often activate it from across the room.
Use “Hey Siri” On Your Mac
It’s obvious why it’s convenient to hail Siri with your voice when your iPhone is on the passenger’s seat or your HomePod is across the room. In those situations, you can’t easily touch the device. It’s different with our Macs. Most of us work on them for hours—fingers on the keyboard—with many ways to trigger Siri right at hand. (See Trigger Siri Manually on the Mac.)
Still, if you’re accustomed to hailing Siri with your voice, you might be glad to hear that some of the newest Macs now support “Hey Siri” too, including the MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018), MacBook Pro (13-inch with Touch Bar, 2018), MacBook Air (13-inch with Retina display, 2018), and iMac Pro.
On supported Macs, go to Apple > System Preferences > Siri and select the “Listen for ‘Hey Siri’” option (Figure 19) to activate this feature.
Figure 19: If you have a Mac that supports Siri voice activation, an option to enable “Hey Siri” appears in System Preferences (boxed).
You can also select the “Allow Siri when locked” option if you want to be able to trigger Siri when your Mac is locked or asleep. This might be useful for iMac Pro users who (unlike MacBook users) don’t carry their computer around and may use their Mac to play music when they’re not working at it. MacBook users will probably find it less convenient to walk over to their computer, open its cover, and say “Hey Siri” than to use Siri with a nearby iOS device. Using the hands-free command may still be useful when your Mac is unlocked, though, for multi-tasking.
