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Siri raise to speak not working

I have it set on the watch. Raising my wrist and all I get is the watch face.

Posted on Sep 17, 2018 10:37 PM

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Posted on Sep 19, 2018 4:23 AM

I thought I was having the same problem, then I discovered I have to raise the watch really vertical (as with the screen "L perpendicular" to the floor) and speak with a medium-to-high volume voice.

52 replies

Sep 19, 2018 5:09 AM in response to mrhoni

You need to raise your watch and put it close to your mouth.


And if you don't want to put the watch so close to your mouth, you can still say "hey Siri" - but the watch needs one or the other to let it know that you want to activate Siri.


MacRumors has a good article about it -

https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/use-siri-raise-to-speak-watchos-5/

Sep 19, 2018 9:23 AM in response to mrhoni

Restarting the watch helped but it took multiple attempts to recognize I asked a question and then once it accepted the question it was a bit slow to provide the answer. Slow enough that I thought it was not going to work again. In my mind and experience its a failure and don’t plan on using it.

Sep 19, 2018 2:50 PM in response to madsalmard206

No, not a proximity sensor and I don't mean that you need to put it right up near your lips. Just closer than you would normally do if you were looking at the time. I think it does either detect the volume (so speaking louder should work too), or by putting it closer to your mouth you may naturally make it more vertical as you suggested.

Sep 21, 2018 8:37 PM in response to mrhoni

Just picked up my Series 4 today and the “Raise to Speak” feature for at least me works when my arm is at the vertical position along side my body, I then will wake my watch and ask a question once the watch is close to my mouth. I noticed that while I am sitting in my recliner that if I wake my watch, raise it to my mouth and ask a question I get no response because again my arm is not being brought up from the vertical position.

Sep 22, 2018 11:22 AM in response to mrhoni

I was having the same problems and it does boil down to the orientation of your arm when you issue the command.


I can get it working every time by raising my arm in such a way that I am speaking normally to the digital crown “side” of the watch, with my voice directed “down the back” side of my left hand. Essentially after raising my arm correctly, I can see the display, but envision the watch’s screen facing just over your left shoulder (assuming the watch is on your left arm).


Hope that helps! Unfortunately the whole “I’ll tap you when I’m ready” is still a problem on Series 4...

Sep 28, 2018 7:31 PM in response to hc2008

I had the same issue with Siri Raise To Speak not working and had initially formulated my frustration in an earlier response in this thread.


I solved my own problem by accident.


1) I already had Siri Raise to Speak enabled in Settings in my Watch.


2) I DID NOT have WAKE SCREEN ON WRIST RAISE enabled, however, in Settings on my Watch. After I enabled this feature, all I have to do is complete the wrist raise, my screen then wakes up, and if I start speaking to Siri, it works flawlessly.


I really did not want to have my watch set up to wake on screen raise, but I am under the impression that unless I enable this feature, Raise to Speak with Siri will not work.


This worked for me on my Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular).

Sep 29, 2018 10:55 AM in response to AjaKat

AjaKat wrote:


I really did not want to have my watch set up to wake on screen raise, but I am under the impression that unless I enable this feature, Raise to Speak with Siri will not work.



That's a good point, and it also applies to "Theater Mode" - "raise to speak" will not activate if Theater Mode is turned on (since it disables the raise to wake feature temporarily).


Up until now the screen was pretty much the entire interface to the watch, so naming the setting "wake screen" made some sense. But technically what it really does is "wake watch" (not just the screen), so of course that includes Siri. I'm willing to bet that watchOS 5.2 renames the setting.

Siri raise to speak not working

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