Hey Siri, Timers? Discussion

Ok, just venting, but this has to get fixed.

I have been using HomePods daily since the OV came out,
and am generally very happy with them.

But for the past year or so I'm having this super annoying behaviour with timers.
I use timers for everything.
Reminding me to take a break, when my next call is, when I have to turn off the oven to avoid burning my dinner.

"Hey Siri, set a 90 minute timer!" - "I have set a one and a half our timer."
Some time later, because I want to know how much longer.
"Hey Siri, timer?" - "It's been cancelled." - "Hey Siri, wtf?!" - "I won't respond to that."
And it's not rare. It's about 80% of the time.

This has worked for years.
How is this regression even possible.

Fuuu ... another burned cake :(

9 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

u/jdi65 2d ago

Not excusing the hot mess that is Siri, but I usually say "Hey Siri, where are we at with the timer(s)?" and have never had one cancel on me using that phrase.

2

u/andreasOM 1d ago

Yeah,
obvsly I can change to a longer, more precise phrase.
The point is:
a) This has worked perfectly for years.
b) How can it misunderstand "timer(s)?" for "cancel timer!"

2

u/TylerInHiFi 2d ago

“Hey siri, how long on my timer?” Always works. I swear 99% of the problems people have with Siri are skill issues. Which is just fucking sad given how easy Siri is to use.

u/MissingAppendage 2d ago

They're just catching up with the Google Mini, I got one of those free many many years ago before I got my Homepod mini. I have the google one in the kitchen, so that's the one I primarily use for timers, and that has always cancelled my existing timer when I attempt to query it by yelling, "Hey Google, Timer" at it.

u/Harverator 2d ago

I only recently discovered timers and I always instead requested an alarm at a certain time. I get the feeling that Siri changes its responses over time based on what people say, because I swear it’s been retrained do not work well with Apple Music for me of late!

u/spiffcleanser 2d ago

I stopped using HomePod almost a year ago because the timers are broken. I wanted to use it for cooking but hilarity and ensued when I learned that timers it had confirmed were now nonexistent. I have turned off Siri on HomePod because it is completely useless.

u/FetchTheCow 2d ago

"Timers" has always worked for me (OG HomePod & HomePod mini). I've never tried "timer." Sorry it's being such a PITA for you.

u/danTHAman152000 13h ago

I have several HPs and they need to communicate with each other! I set the timer in the kitchen, and then when I try to check the timer, the next HomePod over tells me there’s no timer set.