Hi, of the many people with ALS I currently follow,  I have five people using Hey Siri on iPhone 4s or 5 with general success to initiate phone calls, send texts, enter information in their calendar and launch apps.

The phone must be plugged in/charging.      Have had difficulty and/or failure if using a portable charging station or car charger and is most consistent if plugged into the wall or the computer.  

I say "Hey Siri' and then tell Siri the number to call

2.  Siri calls the number and the phone rings.

3.  When the person on the other line answers, they can not hear me talk UNLESS I put the iPhone into SPEAKER phone mode.

4.  When the call is active, Hey Siri no longer works/does not let you summon Siri.    Therefore, one can not use voice to activate the SPEAKER phone option. 

5.  If you have not made your call yet, Hey Siri does not recognize a command to 'activate speaker phone' (thought I could turn it on and then make the call…but did not work for me)

6.  Also, Hey Siri does not become active again until the person you called hangs up and ends the call.    The user of 'Hey Siri' can not end the call. 

To avoid the issue of not being able to hear the person you call, you want to put the phone into permanent speaker mode.     It then will allow the user to hear the communication partner.   It still does not allow you to use Siri while the call is active, still does not allow you to end the call and Hey Siri will only become active again when the person on the other line hangs up.

1. Go into the iPhone Settings

2. Go to General

3. Go to Accessibility

4. Go to "Call Audio Routing" (In the Interaction section)

5. Select "Speaker"

Some glitches I've found to date:

-Hey Siri can launch an app but can not CLOSE the app (Siri even tells you "As much as I'd like to, I can't close an app.").

-I (and several people I support)  have had inconsistency with Siri.   It has worked beautifully and suddenly is finicky.    One example is that for no apparent reason, Siri is confused by saying 'Hey Siri' and instead requires one to blurt out the request at the same time "Hey Siri make a phone call".    Other times, one says "Hey Siri'the phone beeps to let you know it is waiting to hear your request and then will follow through with your request.  

-Sometimes the success with Siri is incumbent upon also seeing the display.    If one can not see it, one may miss a written cue from Siri (that was not spoken).

-there have been two instances of Siri responding: I'M sorry, I can't help you right now.  Please try later".     In both instances the fix was powering down the phone and then powering back up.       It is important to let people know this as some may be lulled into a false sense of security for having a fool proof way of calling for help. 

-If you are telling Siri to make a call and dictate the phone number and one of the numbers is 2, siri may replace it with the word  'to' and the call fails.    One then has to listen to the phone try to make a call and have it fail.     For example, the last four digits of my office number are 2220.     Siri has gotten it right 3 out of 15 times.  All of the other times Siri translated it as 2 to 20.      I try many different rates and intonations but usually get failure.  

- if reminders pop up on the phone screen, Hey Siri can not be used to close them…so if one is relying on the visual, it may be blocked by the pop up.  

Additional information:  Hey Siri will recognize SOME speech synthesizers.    For example, if using an Acapella voice, Hey Siri will NOT recognize (at least for me) the Ryan voice, but recognizes the 'Saul' voice and will even make a phone call (but still puts the word 'to' in if there are consecutive #2s in the number).   

Hope this helps.   

John

From: Erin Singleton <xxxxxx@communitymedical.org>
Reply-To: "xxxxxx@alsa.simplelists.com" <xxxxxx@alsa.simplelists.com>
Date: Monday, December 29, 2014 2:25 PM
To: "xxxxxx@alsa.simplelists.com" <xxxxxx@alsa.simplelists.com>
Subject: Cell phone for PALS