Top 10 Siri Commands for HomeKit

1. Be Specific…Or Not

“Hey Siri, Open the blinds halfway”

“Hey Siri, Dim the desk lamp”

“Hey Siri, Turn the bedroom fan up some”

“Hey Siri, turn the bedroom fan on low.”

So we know that anything that is in HomeKit, we can control with Siri. But did you know that you can actually be pretty broad with your phrases and Siri is usually smart enough to know what you want.

The first thing to note is that you can control these accessories without even using the actual device name. Siri can tell the device type and the room, for example, she just knows when I say bedroom fan, that I’m referring to my bedroom ceiling fan which is not it’s actual name in homekit.

And as a side note, if you are using a HomePod, Siri will know what room you are in and control the accessories in that room if a room is not specified. For example, “Hey Siri, turn on the lights” on a HomePod will turn on all the lights in the room where the HomePod is located.

The second thing to note is that you don’t have to use exact levels. You can of course say “open the blinds to 50%” or “turn the lamp to 25%,” but instead try things like open the blinds halfway or dim the lamp.

She can use the current level as a starting place for adjustments. For example Hey Siri, Dim the lamp, brighten the lamp, turn up the lamp, it’s too bright in the kitchen…all making adjustments to the brightness by 25%.

2. Multiple Accessories

“Hey Siri, turn on the TV lightstrip and Eve Flare in the living room “

Now we’ve gotten used to only being able to give one command at a time. But you can actually give Siri multiple commands, as the example above, and she can handle it. Note, this only works when controlling multiple accessories of the same device type.

In addition, control entire an entire home, room, or zone with one command. For example:

“Hey Siri, turn on the kitchen lights” (room)

“Hey Siri, turn off the lights upstairs” (zone)

3. Scenes

Every night when I’m ready, I’ll tell Siri “I’m going to bed.”

With scenes you can control various accessories across your entire house with one command.

She will cut off all the lights on the main floor with the exception of a few accent lights so we can still see to walk around, cuts off the living room tv, arms my security system, locks the doors, shuts the garage if it’s open, and turns on my bedroom accent lights as we usually watch tv in the bedroom for a while before going to sleep.

And then later when I’m ready I have another “all lights out” scene.

Some other family favorites in the Whatley home are my “party time” , “good morning” and “movie night” scenes.

4. Control the TVs

“Hey Siri, turn on the living room tv.”

You can use Siri to control your HomeKit TV or your Apple TV. And if you have an Apple TV, you can do even more with Siri, using your Siri remote or even your other Apple devices.

In fact, I made a whole video about controlling your Apple TV with your HomePod here: https://youtu.be/CjLebk1ccEQ

Using the Siri remote you can ask Siri to turn on or off the tv, play or pause, open certain apps, find tv shows, turn on subtitles, skip ahead or rewind any amount of time.

If you are watching a show or movie and missed something, simply ask Siri “what did she say?” and your Apple TV will rewind a few seconds and turn on subtitles!

And possibly my favorite one… “Hey Siri, play Shane Creates on YoutTube!” (it actually works!)

5. Exceptions

“Hey Siri, turn off all the lights in the bedroom except for my lamp.
(must be the same device type)

You can even combine this with rooms and zones, for example:

“Hey Siri, turn off all the lights downstairs, except for the living room.”

6. Temperature & Air Quality

“Hey Siri, raise the humidity in the bedroom.”

“Hey Siri, improve the air quality in the bedroom.”

“Hey Siri, what’s the temperature in the bedroom?”

Siri can use your sensors to read temperature, humidity, air quality and even make adjustments to your environment through your smart thermostats, humidifiers or air purifiers.

Did you know you can even say stuff like, Hey Siri, the house is too hot, or Hey Siri, cool the bedroom” and she will make adjustments to your thermostat.

7. Speakers

“Hey Siri, Play this in the living room and the kitchen”

If you have multiple HomePods, or airplay 2 speakers, you can do many things with audio playback.

If you are listening in the kitchen and want to move to your bedroom, say something like “Hey Siri, move this to the bedroom”

Some other examples for controlling your speakers:
“Hey Siri, play everywhere.”

“Hey Siri, what’s paying upstairs?”

“Hey Siri, stop playing in the bedroom.”

“Hey Siri, set the kitchen volume to 20 percent.”

8. HomeKit Status

“Hey Siri, did I remember to lock the house?

This is one of my favorites. Not only can you ask Siri for the status of any accessory in your home, you can ask if you remembered to do something. She will then give you the status and ask if you would like to change it.

“Hey Siri, did I leave the garage open?” – If you did, she will tell you then ask if you would like to close it. The same thing works for lights, locks, etc.

9. Cameras

“Hey Siri, show me the front porch.”

This simple command will automatically show you your camera for the specified room and works on your iPhone or iPad, and soon, coming to tvOS 14 in the fall, on your Apple TV.

10. Camera Recordings