
Optimizing Siri on HomePod in Far‑Field Settings - cift
https://machinelearning.apple.com/2018/12/03/optimizing-siri-on-homepod-in-far-field-settings.html
======
gnicholas
> _Directional noises generated by household appliances such as a vacuum
> cleaner, hairdryer, and microwave_

From what my friends with HomePods tell me, the HomePod is amazingly good at
hearing people — even with lots of background noise. Interestingly, Apple's
problem may cease being "can the HomePod hear the user?" and become "How
loudly do we have the HomePod respond so that the human can hear the response
while a vaccum cleaner is running?".

This is a novel problem because people generally can't have conversations with
vaccums running, for example.

~~~
dkonofalski
It is exceptionally good at hearing people. I tested with our HomePod and our
Amazon Echo next to each other and the HomePod outperformed the Echo any time
there was outside noise or any time the device itself was playing music. The
fact that the Echo can't seem to hear people talking over itself seems like a
big issue. The HomePod has to use some kind of audio cancellation that
subtracts anything it's playing because it was able to hear me from a room
away at normal speaking volume at 80%+ playback volume.

~~~
ntumlin
I briefly had an Echo, and one thing my friends and I found funny was to have
it play some annoying song, and then call out "Alexa, volume 10" because once
it got that loud, the only way to make it stop was to go over and manually
adjust the volume, as it couldn't hear anyone trying to turn it down.

------
tdboorman
I was testing a HomePod as a conference speakerphone in a large open office
environment - where we often have all hands - and it did extremely well -
clearly picking up individuals that were quite far from the actual device and
that were speaking at a normal volume. I would love Apple to enable some sort
of "Office Mode" for the HomePod similar to what they've done with the Apple
TV (given the name doubt it will happen anytime soon) - maybe something they
could work on with Cisco on? It performed better than the Jabra Speak 810
which is almost twice the cost. Has anyone else experienced this or used it in
an office environment?

~~~
athenot
Cisco has the Webex Board (formerly SparkBoard). It has an array of 12
microphones on top and does audio processing to pick out who's talking, cancel
the noise, and since it has an idea of where the participant is, the video
part zooms into the speaker during a call.

 _Disclaimer: Yes I 'm in that BU_

[https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collaboration-
endpoin...](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collaboration-
endpoints/webex-board/index.html)

~~~
gnicholas
Purchasing the low-end version of the WebEx Board and paying for just one year
of the subscription would cost as much as 21 HomePods, if my back-of-the
envelope math works out. Not exactly a HomePod competitor...

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/25/cisco_spark_boards/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/25/cisco_spark_boards/)

------
neom
A few of my friends have Google Home and I found it very interesting they have
to shout louder at the device when the music is louder, I've never had a
problem with the HomePod hearing me, even if I whisper and music is playing. I
have a HomePod in the livingroom about 15 feet from the bathroom and it can
always hear me in the morning. I also find it's good at knowing what HomePod
in my house to react on, and handing the request off to the HomePod if my
iPhone picks up. My only complaint is that if my iPhone is upside down Hey
Siri stops working on the HomePod.

~~~
PascLeRasc
Do you mean if your phone is in your pocket upside down, Siri doesn't work on
the Homepod? That's very weird.

~~~
neom
No, it has to be laying flat face down on the table for this to happen - I
presume it's a result of the iPhones facedown detection but not sure why it's
preventing my HomePod from registering.

~~~
tonywastaken
Does Siri on the phone respond when it is face down? You should contact Apple
Care.

~~~
neom
It doesn't, but it's not supposed to.

------
melling
"Unlike Siri on iPhone, which operates close to the user’s mouth,"

I wish they wouldn't make this assumption. Siri would be much more useful
sitting on my kitchen counter or coffee table. I now use the Echo for timers,
music, weather, movie times, random questions, ...

~~~
gnicholas
I find that my iPhone is responsive to Siri requests if I'm within 8-10 feet.
It's possible that training "Hey Siri" at this distance could help.

But at the end of the day, Apple won't optimize too much for this use case,
since they want you to buy a HomePod, Apple Watch, or AirPods.

Also, there's power consumption to think about. The HomePod is plugged 24/7,
whereas you want your iPhone battery to last a long time.

~~~
endorphone
As an aside, one neat side effect of _hey Siri_ is that often multiple devices
can hear you at the same time. In my office I have my XR, iPad, and for dev an
iPhone 7 and 8. When I say hey Siri I often hear all of them start to respond,
but then all but one cancels listening. I've never really paid attention to
which one wins the battle, but it does usually seem to be the device closest
to me.

Just thought it was interesting as something they had to accommodate --
multiple devices all phoning home to determine if there's a race, and if so
who should field the request.

~~~
eridius
I believe it uses the same logic that Handoff does to determine what your
"active" device is. If the "active" device hears the Siri request, it
responds. Otherwise I think it prioritizes HomePod.

If multiple HomePods hear it, I'm not sure, possibly using volume to determine
distance?

~~~
icebraining
Since they have an array of six mics, they could triangulate the sound to
calculate the distances.

~~~
eridius
Wouldn't a strict volume check be better in general? If I'm physically closer
to one HomePod but something is in the way, obscuring audio, then I probably
want to talk to the HomePod that's further away but unobscured. Or to put it
another way, if I'm standing in my living room next to the door to the Office,
the Office HomePod might be physically closer, but I'm probably trying to talk
to the Living Room one.

------
snops
For a related (but less complicated) project, see Mozilla's RNNoise project,
which uses neural networks to better tune classical signal processing
algorithms to reduce noise in recorded speech:
[https://people.xiph.org/~jm/demo/rnnoise/](https://people.xiph.org/~jm/demo/rnnoise/)

------
bigiain
Does anybody else wonder how advanced audio surveillance tech is, if
commercial off the shelf consumer products are _this good_ at eavesdropping?

Has anyone ever tried putting a HomePod at the focus of a large parabolic
(audio) reflector, and pointing it at their neighbours windows or people
across the park?

~~~
rjplatte
The parabolic reflector might be unnecessary...

~~~
bigiain
When I was a kid, I had this toy that was a cardboard tube with a 12-14"
plastic parabolic dish on it and a microphone at the focus with earphones. It
was surprisingly effective at letting you hear conversations from long-ish
distances.

Reading this page made me wonder just how good the NSA's version of that toy
is these days assuming they've got multi-microphone and signal processing gear
at least as good as (and probably an order or two of magnitude better than)
what Apple will sell you for a few hundred bucks...

Hi gain 2.4/5GHz antennas aren't "necessary" for wardriving, but they make new
things possible if you do use them...

------
kharms
In my experience they over-optimized, with homepod now responding to "hey
Sara" instead of Siri. Drives my partner nuts.

~~~
toasterlovin
We've been getting lots of false positives, as well, but it seems to have
started happening suddenly. I wonder if it's related to a recent software
update.

~~~
fetus8
Have you noticed that certain queries that used to work have stopped giving
you the expected response?

I've started noticing more false positives since iOS 12 launched, and there's
a couple requests that now don't give me the expected response. The most
annoying issue happens to be requesting Siri to set an alarm. I'll ask: "Hey
Siri, turn on my 6:15am alarm." to which she'll respond, "Which alarm do you
want to turn on..." and then list all the different alarms I've set on the
HomePod.

This all changed with iOS 12, and I wonder if I should reach out to Apple or
just live with it and hope it improves with a software update??

~~~
threeseed
If you think about what you asked Siri it's a sensible response.

You didn't ask her to set an alarm for 6:15am. You asked her to turn on an
existing 6:15am alarm.

Which since I am assuming it didn't exist Siri asked what others you did want
to turn on.

~~~
fetus8
Late response, but here's the thing...that alarm does exist and is listed off
when Siri goes through all the existing alarm options that can be turned on...

------
TYPE_FASTER
At some point in the future, I'd rather wear a BT headset most of the time in
some inconspicuous manner and use that for notifications and requests. The
device and headset could know if I'm focused and wait until I come up for air
for lower priority notifications. I would always have a mic handy for vocal
requests.

The last stop before true integration where I just have to think my request...

~~~
ianai
Sounds sort of cool, but am I the only one not interested in vocalizing my
computer UI? I’d just rather not interact with technology that way. I perceive
it as a direct competitor for what I’d rather have “in the air” - music, etc.

