Resolved Siri is so bad... what do I have to say to operate an accessory?

[sparky672]

Room: Garage
Accessory: South Door

Recognized and operates fine as part of a scene or tapping the icons.

Me: "Hey Siri, OPEN Garage South Door"
Siri: "The Garage South Door is closed"
Me: "Open it"
Siri: "Which app do you want me to open?"

Alternately...

Me: "Hey Siri, OPEN Garage Door" - [I am obviously not specific enough]
Siri: "Which accessory do you want me to open?" - [Siri shows me a list]
Me: "Garage South Door" - [door just opens as it should]

 

[Slartibart]

my experience is that it often helps to wrap the command into a Shortcut and call that (“Open Sesame” or whatever) - slightly tedious and shouldn’t be necessary, but here we are.

 

[tragicwinding]

Siri can be a bit finicky when it comes to naming conventions. One thing you might want to try is giving your accessories a more specific name. For instance, "Garage South Door" could be renamed to something like "South Garage Door" or "Garage Door South". Then, when giving Siri a command, try using the exact name of the accessory, like "Hey Siri, open South Garage Door".

If that doesn't work, you could try creating a Shortcut in the Shortcuts app with a specific command for Siri to open the Garage South Door. You can then call that shortcut whenever you want to open the door.

Apple has a handy guide on how to use Siri with HomeKit that might provide some additional insights.

 

[sparky672]

Siri can be a bit finicky when it comes to naming conventions. One thing you might want to try is giving your accessories a more specific name. For instance, "Garage South Door" could be renamed to something like "South Garage Door" or "Garage Door South". Then, when giving Siri a command, try using the exact name of the accessory, like "Hey Siri, open South Garage Door".

How is rearranging the same three words being more specific? And adding the name of the room to the name of the accessory is redundant and seems wrong.

Saying the exact room and accessory name should work.

I may end up trying "South Garage Door" again, but I believe that was already tried back when I set it up originally. Report back later.

Apple has a handy guide on how to use Siri with HomeKit that might provide some additional insights.

There's little there, and nothing that is not already being done.

Based on Apple's own guide, there is very little naming specificity there.

Another failed attempt based on Apple's online guide:

Me: "Hey Siri, OPEN South Door in the Garage"
Siri: "Which accessory do you want me to open?" - [Siri shows me a list]

Thank you for taking the time to respond. It's appreciated.

 

[TonyC28]

I remember having some issues with this when I first set it up. I have two garage doors. One is called "Little Garage Door" and the other is "Big Garage Door." Both are located in the room called "Garage." To open either all I have to say to Siri is "Open little garage door" or "open big garage door" and it works.

 

[sparky672]

Actually, I have no idea what the exact technical name of the accessory is supposed to be...

EDIT: The name mismatch in the second image is the big clue. Don't know how it happened or how that's even possible. Manually editing it causes the top one to match.

 

[sparky672]

Found the root cause. NOTICE the naming mis-match. How is this possible?

Even though the accessory was showing up in Home as "South Door", its official name was "Garage South Door".

AND even though I was still saying this exact name, "Garage South Door", this internal mis-matching of names was causing the entire issue with Siri.

Fixed it by renaming it to "South Door" where it previously showed "Garage South Door"...

The exact same Siri commands that were previously failing are now working. "Open Garage South Door" and "Close Garage South Door" trigger the action.

One could argue that this naming mis-match should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. It cannot be done manually since whatever name I type, it automatically matches everywhere within Home. I think maybe the original issue was caused when the doors were created/named in the Meross app and then picked up by the Home app. Even so, Home should never allow a naming mismatch to save. It's no wonder some people need to blow out their HomeKit home and recreate from scratch.