TipBITS: Restart Your iPhone or iPad Using Siri

Originally published at: TipBITS: Restart Your iPhone or iPad Using Siri - TidBITS

If you need to restart your iPhone or iPad, you can now ask Siri to perform that task for you rather than pressing hard-to-remember button combinations. Alas, the feature doesn’t work on other Apple devices that could also use it.

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Is there a way to do it with iOS 15.7? That’s as high as I seem to be able to go with my iPhone 7 Plus.

That makes me wonder if someone could cause all the iPhones in a crowded room to restart by yelling, “Hey Siri, reboot,” and following it up with “Yes” a few seconds later.

Not my phone. My Siri only reacts to my voice. IIRC you set it up that way when you activate “Listen for Hey Siri”.

Just FYI. This doesn’t work on my iPhone 14 running 16.2. “Sorry, I cannot help you with that.”
I’m not in the US so maybe it hasn’t been rolled out globally?

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It works in the UK on a 13 Pro running 16.2.

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At least for my 12 mini, if the device isn’t unlocked, Siri tells me that I need to unlock my iPhone first for the “Hey Siri, reboot” command. So, it would seem that even if you could commandeer a PA system or similar, you’d first need to figure out how to unlock those devices which are currently locked.

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That’s also a user setting.

Settings > Siri & Search > Allow Siri When Locked

My Siri is not allowed to listen if I haven’t already unlocked my 12 mini.

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In case anyone is interested, there is also a way to add an icon to your Home Screen to restart (using a shortcut). See Add a ‘Shut Down’ Button to Your iPhone’s Home Screen to Quickly Power Off or Disable Biometrics | by Justin Meyers | Jan, 2023 | Medium

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No, sorry, it’s only in iOS 16 and later.

Ach, you’re right. I set that up so long ago that I had forgotten how it steps you through four or five phrases to learn your voice. So I suppose it’s possible that a yelled “Hey Siri” might be general enough to trigger a few iPhones, but probably not most of them.

Is there actually a way to set up Siri to not be personalized? When I turn on Hey Siri I don’t recall seeing a way to circumvent its calibration (personalization).

Interestingly, I do allow Siri when locked, but I still can’t command a restart of a locked device. However, in doing a bit more testing this morning, I discovered that if the device had been unlocked recently (not sure how long the window might be), I would receive the confirmation dialog.

Very interesting…

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Not as far as I know, but I also don’t know just how accurate it is at ignoring other voices. In short, what’s the false positive rate for Hey Siri from other people?

My wife can’t trigger mine. My brother and a couple male friends who tried can’t either. And none of the radio ads that attempt to do it have ever triggered mine so at this point I’m assuming it’s pretty good. If it were that easy, I bet we’d by now have heard of plenty pranks like this.

But it is a problem at times, at least on some devices. That’s why podcasters try to avoid saying the words “Hey Siri” (like Andy Ihnatko’s “Hey Schlomo”), and we’ve definitely had our HomePod triggered by sound from the TV. The HomePod is probably different. I think I’ve seen Siri triggered occasionally on my iMac by ambient commands too.

Interesting. I wonder of perhaps on the iPhone Apple has made the requirement for a match a little tougher. I would definitely consider it the more ‘personal’ device than a HomePod or Mac.

My SO & I can’t command each others phones, but my iPad often responds to Hey Siri despite it being further away from me in the office (and in a case)

I did try to restart the phone yesterday and it worked. I am on 16.2

Diane

I’ve seen the same thing. Our phones generally don’t get triggered accidentally. But our HomePod mini responds to anybody’s voice.

OK, thanks. Restarting is something I have to consider carefully, anyway, because, as a result of security recommendations found on this forum, I added a SIM pin. Starting up adds confusing prompts. Instead of asking for the unlock code then asking for the SIM pin, it leaves me with only the choice of starting the process of an emergency call, which I then have to cancel to receive the prompts mentioned above. I’m not actually too put off by that, because I suspect that if a thief actually got hold of the phone, he or she would probably just throw it away after seeing that sort of interface obfuscation. Anyway, I heartily recommend adding the SIM pin. Thanks again, and thanks for all you do here at TidBITS and TipBITS!

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