Tag: HomeKit

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Offsite Podcasts

Smart Tech Today 10: We Want Smart Blinds šŸŽ™

On our tenth episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talk about these stories:

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Links Offsite Podcasts

Smart Tech Today 8: Goodnight, Sonos: Voice-Controlled Computing šŸŽ™

On episode 8 of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about:

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Tips & Tricks

Automating how loud Siri replies on the HomePod

Hero image of HomePod in the author's home

Iā€™m a huge fan of the HomePod ā€“ after bearing the investment cost, itā€™s improved my daily interactions with music and opened access to controlling my smart home gear, plus provides a new medium for everything Iā€™ve built in the Shortcuts app.

But one of the nagging problems with HomePod is the way Siri, regardless of the current time of day, will respond loudly at whatever volume youā€™ve previously set.

Whether itā€™s the middle of the night or super early in the morning, itā€™s all too common to ask Siri something and the answer shouted backed at you, only because you listened to music loudly sometime yesterday. Hopefully nobody wakes up, you curse at how dumb your supposedly ā€œsmartā€ speaker can be, and frantically try to turn it down.

Thankfully, iOS 13.2 provides a route to a solution by adding HomePods and AppleTV to scenes and automations ā€“ the HomePod didnā€™t fix this on its own, but, with a Home Automation, you can make it ā€œsmartā€ enough yourself.1

Continue reading “Automating how loud Siri replies on the HomePod”
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Offsite Podcasts

Smart Tech Today #1: Voice Assistants in Your Ears šŸŽ™

On Monday, Mikah Sargent and I recorded episode 1 of Smart Tech Today in person at the TWiT studio. In the show, we:

  • Attempt to create nicknames for the major voice assistants. Be sure to share your ideas for Siri, Alexa, and Google nicknames by emailing stt@twit.tv!
  • Discuss all the products Amazon announced at its recent press event. Matthew gets Mikah to change his mind about the smart oven Amazon launched.
  • Ponder the future of voice-based operating systems given the fact that every company seems to be announcing earbuds that work with smart assistants.
  • Give a brief rundown of their smart home setups.
  • Answer questions about automating alarms using Siri Shortcuts and NFC tags.
  • Give a shout-out to the one-and-only Gemmy the Twerking Bear.

Hereā€™s Mikah and I after recording ā€“ had a blast! Weā€™re off to a great start, but any help sharing the show to new people still goes a long way.

Once we hit 30,000 subscribers, weā€™ll have a full video feed of each episode too, available on our YouTube channel:

Plus, hereā€™s a set of Siri Shortcuts for subscribing and listening to the show:

Weā€™ll be live every Monday at 4pm PST, with the episode dropping later each evening. Thanks for listening!

Links for the show: