Problems starting Shortcut via Siri

Shortcuts
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1

Hi all,

I made a couple of shortcuts in my iPhone to quickly change the target of the sound output (Airpods, HomePod , iPhone etc.). They work well when evoked from the shortcuts app, but when I try to use Siri to start them, it takes them very long to execute. More often than not, they fail to run completely.

What’s the problem here? Do you have any tips?

Thanks in advance,
Johannes

2

How quickly does Siri respond to other requests? Voice processing to trigger something is generally goong to be much slower that tapping a specific trigger button.

FWIW, on iOS14, I never got Siri to trigger a Shortcut. The name never got recognised as the name of a Shortcut even when matched and even when triggered by text entry.

3

Thanks for your quick response.

The interesting thing is, that the response from Siri is different depending between the shortcuts: The shortcuts to route the audio output to my iPhone and my AirPods respond as I were tapping them in the shortcuts app. Problems are the shortcuts for a HomePod and a Sonos speaker. Those devices had made some difficulties to connect to without shortcuts in the past. But when I tap the shortcuts for them, the connection is made within seconds and very reliably. Just not when the shortcut is evoked by Siri…

4

That sounds then like it is focused only on external device connections to AirPlay and Bluetooth. Is there any difference for response times based on whether the device is locked or unlocked?

5

No, that makes no difference.

6

Well given that the trigger for Shortcuts is only the trigger and does not seem to apply across the board, and the locked status of the device makes no difference, I guess the next logical step would be to look for patterns in when you get good vs poor response times. Physical location, time triggered, even stuff like what equipment you have turned on that could be happening to affect it.

I would start logging data and running tests. Maybe even builtin it into the Shortcuts.

7

Ok, thanks. I’m not sure if this kind of debugging is worth the problem for me :smiley: Came here with the hope that this is a common problem with an easy fix. But I really appreciate your tips! Will report back if I find the root of the problem.