"Hey Siri" allows you to use Siri without the Home button

Sep 11, 2015 13:14 GMT  ·  By

A freshly discovered feature, added by Apple in the latest iOS 9 GM (gold master) seed and iOS 9.1 Beta released for developers, allows iPhone users to go through a voice recognition training camp allowing Siri to recognize the iPhone owner's voice and supposedly to ignore other people's voices that try to activate it.

Any iPhone user can already take advantage of the new hands-free Siri by going to Settings > General > Siri and toggling the Allow "Hey Siri" button. Doing this will allow you to speak to Siri by saying "Hey Siri" when your iPhone is connected to power.

As noted by MacRumors, after the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus models will be released on the market, the feature will work even when the phones are not connected to a power outlet because the M9 motion coprocessor will take care of keeping the device always on and scanning its surroundings or incoming voice commands.

Apple's improved Siri is easy to train

Once you enable the "Allow Hey Siri" option, you will be able to train Siri to recognize your voice using a setup process that will make it easier for your iPhone's personal assistant to identify your voice later on.

The voice recognition setup procedure starts with a screen that tells you that it will allow Siri to recognize your voice when saying "Hey Siri." This could also mean that Siri might also get better at recognizing your voice when you're issuing other voice commands.

Next, you will be asked to repeat some sentences designed to help the personal assistant to pinpoint various pronunciation patterns. First you will begin with "Hey Siri," next you'll be asked to repeat "Hey Siri, how's the weather today," and "Hey Siri, it's me" at the end of the training setup.

Once you're finished, the iPhone will display "Hey Siri Is Ready" and "Siri will recognize your voice when your iPhone is connected to power and you say "Hey Siri."

Siri has gotten really good lately because while setting up the "Hey Siri" feature on my own iPhone, the process went smoothly, with Siri recognizing every sentence the first time I said it, as opposed to previous experiences on older versions of iOS when I had to repeat questions more than once.

"Hey Siri" voice recognition training (8 Images)

Starting the voice recognition setup
Enabling the "Hey Siri" featureOngoing "Hey Siri" training
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