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                Beware of Siri Creating Alarms Instead of Timers

   Adam Engst

   I regularly use timers on the Apple Watch to remind myself about
   cooking times, ensure I don't miss a meeting (see '[1]A Call to Alarms:
   Why We Need Persistent Calendar and Reminder Notifications,' 11 May
   2023), track how long to hold or repeat various exercises, remember to
   move the laundry along, avoid overdoing it by splitting wood for too
   long, and much else. The command is always the same: 'Set a timer for
   20 minutes' or whatever length of time is desired.

   A timer failing to go off can be a real problem. Food might burn, I
   might be late, or the people performing a thoroughly evil core exercise
   with me might revolt. That's happened more frequently in the past few
   months, but I didn't know why until recently.

   The first clue came when alarms started to go off on my Apple Watch
   every so often. That's unusual; I seldom set alarms, and when I do,
   it's always on my iPhone, not the Apple Watch. I didn't think too much
   about the spurious alarms, chalking them up to cosmic rays.

   The explanation came from [2]a blog post by my friend Paul Kafasis.
   Paul had noticed the same problem, but he realized what was happening
   because he was paying closer attention to Siri's visual feedback on the
   Apple Watch.

   Something has recently changed with Siri such that it occasionally
   misses the final word'usually 'minutes''in the standard command,
   turning 'Set a timer for 20 minutes' into 'Set a timer for 20.' I have
   become so accustomed to timers just working that I hadn't been looking
   at the screen like Paul had, so I didn't notice that Siri interprets
   that second command as a request to set an alarm for '20' (8 PM.) As
   you can see from the scrollbar in the third screenshot below, I've
   ended up with a slew of random alarms in the Apple Watch's Alarms app.

   They're a little annoying to delete, too. You have to tap each one,
   scroll down, and tap Delete. I was hoping there would be a long swipe
   to the left, but I discovered an even better way, which was to tell
   Siri, 'Delete all my alarms.' Way to go nuclear, Siri.

   There's no way to ensure that Siri always sets a timer instead of an
   alarm because the command is already correct'Siri is just missing that
   final word for some reason. However, there are two ways you can ensure
   that Siri sets a timer rather than starting an alarm:
     * Look at the watch face after you speak your command to confirm
       Siri's action. The screens for timers and alarms are visually
       distinct, so it's an easy difference to spot.
     * Turn on Siri's spoken responses, captions, and the transcription of
       your speech in Watch > Siri > Siri Responses. I've never felt these
       were necessary before (and the responses grate quickly), but they
       should reduce the chance of you missing Siri's mistakes.
       
   Apart from the announcement that you'll have the option of dropping
   'Hey' from 'Hey Siri' commands, Apple said very little about Siri at
   WWDC, so it seems unlikely that significant under-the-hood improvements
   are coming this year. Nonetheless, we hope Apple addresses at least
   this problem soon because it's exacerbating an already somewhat fraught
   interaction method.

References

   Visible links
   1. https://tidbits.com/2023/05/11/a-call-to-alarms-why-we-need-persistent-calendar-and-reminder-notifications/
   2. https://onefoottsunami.com/2023/05/24/timers-vs-alarms/

   Hidden links:
   3. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2023/06/Alarms-instead-of-timers.jpg
   4. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2023/06/Deleting-alarms.jpg
   5. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2023/06/Siri-Responses-scaled.jpg

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