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A comment on Amazon’s Echo Brims with Groundbreaking Promise. Parent comment

Re:Amazon’s Echo Brims with Groundbreaking Promise by Touche on Wednesday March 09, 2016 @10:38AM (#11253534)
I haven't used an iPhone in a while, does Siri have a wake word? Does it work when the phone is in standby? Android has "Ok Google" but it doesn't work when in standby and doesn't work from the distance that Echo does.

I think that's really its killer feature. You are in the pantry and notice you're out of basil, you say "Alexa, add basil to my shopping list" and it's done. No pulling out your phone, no unlock screens, you just say what you want to happen and it works.

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Re:Amazon’s Echo Brims with Groundbreaking Promise by yoda_sl on Wednesday March 09, 2016 @10:46AM (#11253592)
As of the latest iPhone 6, you don't even need to have the iPhone plugged. You trained Siri a few times by saying a few sentences and later you can say "hey Siri" and it will start listening. Apple added some new chip which will be listening for that key sentence and will only react to your voice, not someone else. So no more funny joke from co-worker nor Podcast and in addition low battery impact.
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Re:Amazon’s Echo Brims with Groundbreaking Promise by el_benhameen on Wednesday March 09, 2016 @11:22AM (#11253820)
As much as I want to like this feature, I've found it less than impressive. It rarely picks me up on the first try, so I find myself shouting a very clearly-enunciated "HEY SIRI" a few times, which kind of kills the magic. About 50% of the time I just end up walking over to the phone and using my hands to accomplish whatever I was trying to do. I'm not trying this from far away or in a noisy environment, either. Admittedly an anecdote, but still frustrating.
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Re:Amazon’s Echo Brims with Groundbreaking Promise by ghaff on Wednesday March 09, 2016 @10:43AM (#11253566)
If it's plugged in, you can enable an iPhone to respond to "Hey Siri" as a wake phrase.

[EDIT: I have an iPhone 6. Apparently the latest models don't need to be plugged in.]

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Re:Amazon’s Echo Brims with Groundbreaking Promise by jonknee on Wednesday March 09, 2016 @10:50AM (#11253617)
It does ("Hey Siri"), but it doesn't work from far away or when it's in your pocket. Echo definitely has the edge in that respect.
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Re:Amazon’s Echo Brims with Groundbreaking Promise by mikelward on Wednesday March 09, 2016 @10:45AM (#11253581)
"Hey Siri" on iPhone 6s according to http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/206240/why-is-alway...

Haven't tried it myself, so can't comment on the range.

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Re:Amazon’s Echo Brims with Groundbreaking Promise by colinramsay on Wednesday March 09, 2016 @10:44AM (#11253574)
Prior to the 6S the phone had to be plugged in for the wake word ("Hey Siri") to work, but as of the iPhone 6S you can do it when running from battery. As you say, the microphone is not particular good at distance.
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