Apple Watch "Raise to Speak" function not responding well

I know you said you raise it up to your mouth, but how close are you bringing it to your mouth? The reason I ask is I had all but given up on raise to speak for Siri on Apple Watch until I was watching a YouTube video about the new Apple Watch Ultra a few days back. The video wasn't about Siri, but the creator happened to demo a Siri function and did so by using raise to speak. I was surprised by how close he held his watch to his mouth. I tried doing the same and voila, it works again, every time.

I'm guessing there was a change in the software between Watch OS9 ad Watch OS10 requiring the watch to be closer to your mouth, probably to prevent false activations. I tried searching for some info to confirm, but instead my search brought me to this thread.

Anyway, hope that helps.

I’ve been having the same issue and was really let down because I hate saying “Siri” before a command, just feels lame. I’d be lucky if raise to speak worked 1/10 times.

And then I got it to start working for me every single time! The trick is to speak into the watch face as soon as it comes up to your mouth, maybe even a little bit before. I found if I hesitate at all it will not work. It’s like this feature only activates the speaker for a fraction of a second and turns off if it doesn’t immediately hear your voice. Maybe to save battery?

Now if I could only figure out how to get the handwashing timer to work every time. I don’t know if I’m alone, but actually like that feature but it hardly ever works :(

Try to deactivate the Wake on wrist raise function of the screen and then reactivate again. Then the raise to speak function for Siri should work again!

What does significantly help me is to turn off Siri, delete Siri history on Apple Watch and again turn on Siri and enable activating Siri just with raising a wrist. Try it. But definitely, there is a bug, even in the latest OS 10.3.

I was experiencing the same issue and then tried bringing the watch right up to my lips and… boom problem sorted so it appears to be a proximity issue. The watch needs to be within a couple of cm to your lips. Happy Days

Im guessing watch faces has something to do with raise to speak function not working. For me, deleting all except one watch faces helped with that, now its working every single time. Before it worked once in infinity requests. Like this morning, before deleting watch faces, i was repeatedly trying to ask siri, but she did not work not even once. Im using modular ultra watch face on ultra 2.

hope that will help.

merry Christmas.

Holly smokes, it works!!! I have Ultra 2 and tried all other tips and non worked until i read this - raise wrist and get super close to a mouth. It works now every single time. Thanks!!!

10.3 (WatchOS) seem to fix this. just testing , multiple tries, it works

Unfortunately, deactivating and reactivating only works exactly once. This behavior is so consistent it has to be a bug. Deactivate re-activate, works fine. Once. Try using it a second time in a row, never works. De-activate and re-activate, works fine again. Once.

WatchOS 10.1 did not help unfortunately, the exact same behavior persists.

I tried it again recently and found that it is working now, but different than it used to be.

Just raise it up and start talking. The response is much more delayed and it seems like it’s not working, but about mid-sentence it seems to pick up and hear the whole thing.

Definitely a regression but it is working for me now.

I just updated to watchOS 10.3, and my impression is that it's working a lot better! I still need to hold the watch close to my mouth, but not a close as before.

for me it helped to leave “ON” also the “..Hei Siri” switch , under “General->Siri”

This seems to be working properly in 10.3 RC. Tried it four times in a row and it worked every time. That has literally NEVER happened since 10.0, and it used to work like that all the time.

Hopefully it sticks this time. Apple, please don’t break it again. I guess regression testing is out of fashion these days.

Today I got a brand new Series 9 watch, I upgraded to latest watch OS 10.3 (215644) but other than that its factory default settings

Raise to speak is enabled in settings, and I've tried many times but it just doesn't trigger EVER. Disabling and re-enabling the feature doesn't help.

It does work if I say "Hey Siri" first, or hold down the crown (which my old Series 5 did anyway)

I've only got one watch face, which again is the default one. So multple watch faces might be the cause of it for some people, but not for me.

This feature is yet another half-assed mess, long gone are the days when Apple stuff 'just works'.

I'd rather you hadn't offered it, than to offer it and then it not work at all.

i experience the same thing with watchOS 10 and now watchOS 10.1. Deactivating and reactivating the feature does not help. I went for an evening run last night and I was trying everything to make it work.

1. i raised my wrist in a very determined way. Didn't help.
2. i kept it very close to my mouth and tried it with a very loud voice. Didn't help.
3. deactivating/reactivating the feature didn't work.
4. deactivating Siri and reactivating her didn't work.

this has to be a bug! I used it flawlessly with watchOS 9