HomePod is always listening: as soon as it hears “Hey Siri,” it pricks up its ears and waits for a command to arrive. Only problem: any “Hey Siri” (or something equivalent) is enough to activate the assistant. Including those from a TV series, show or movie! Apple is fixing this issue in tvOS 18.2.
In 2019, in an advertising spot for AirPods, we could hear an actor say “Hey Siri” (or rather its English equivalent, “Hey Siri”). These two little words had the misfortune of triggering the HomePodmany users of the connected speaker at home! With often painful results: the assistant can get confused and “respond” to what the actor says, or simply cut off the music that was playing.
A simple problem, a complex solution
From, Apple has not repeated this error, but it can happen that the HomePod activates because it thinks it hears “Hey Siri” in a broadcast. The manufacturer is working on a solution: a framework called “AdBlocker” is in fact present in the latest beta of tvOS 18.2. If its name suggests that it is an ad blocker, which would not make much sense on a HomePod without a screen, it would be a new system to prevent the speaker from activating listening to an unexpected “Hey Siri”.
AdBlocker is not only linked to ShazamKit, the programming interface used by applications to recognize music tracks, but also to the process responsible for managing the voice commands “Siri” and “Hey Siri”, as explained 9to5Mac.
The new framework will download audio fingerprints from Apple’s servers (probably taken from Apple TV+ series), then use the ShazamKit API to compare them to the audio captured by the HomePod’s microphones. If matched, AdBlocker will temporarily disable Siri triggering. A complex solution to a seemingly simple problem, but it’s about distinguishing “real” from “false” Hey Siri!
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Source :
9to5Mac
