Homepod will not recognize voice

I cannot believe this is still a thing. Bought a homepod mini in the hopes of finally getting out of the amazon ecosystem entirely and into the Apple ecosystem. Homepod works perfectly for me, but my wife the little speaker will not recognize her voice. We set it up, and it works for about 30 minutes, when she says, "Who am I?" it will respond with her name....but if she tries to add things to a list or make personal requests, all it says is complete on iPhone or "I don't know who is speaking." I have to say this must be the worst device Apple has made, which is disappointing because it is the final piece of our Apple ecosystem puzzle.

We have turned off Hey Siri, turned it back on, reset Recognize My Voice a thousand times, reset her phone and the homepod....and it still does the same thing, works for a few minutes, and then....cannot recognize her voice......

This can't be the experience everybody is STILL having. What am I doing wrong?