Kendrick Lamar bans all cameras during his latest tour

You’ve likely heard of big-name musicians banning smartphones at concerts, but Kendrick Lamar is taking things one step further. The superstar isn’t allowing any cameras during the European stint of his latest tour, including pro photographers. Yes, you won’t even have the opportunity to share official shots, let alone record the show with your phone. Lamar had allowed some pros during his North American gigs, but that’s apparently as far as he was willing to go.

The reasoning remains the same as with earlier smartphone bans (such as those at Dave Chappelle’s events). It’s partly about ensuring that fans are actually enjoying the concert rather than trying to record it all. And it might just drive ticket sales — you may be more likely to attend if you can’t just rely on a friend’s Instagram feed to see what you missed. There’s also the side benefit of keeping any missteps out of the limelight, although artists usually reserve that for warm-up gigs or one-off shows.

The difference, of course, is that most such bans still keep pros on hand to preserve some moments and create an ideal (if sterile) version of what happened. Here, Lamar is more of an egalitarian: if you can’t capture that live take on “Humble,” neither can the local promoters or news outlets. While we wouldn’t expect most artists to go this route (lesser-known musicians often thrive on the exposure), you might see it happen more often with artist big enough that a total camera ban only adds to their mystique.

Source: Guardian

After Math: It’s bobsled time!

The 2018 Winter Olympics are starting up but Pyeongchang won’t be the only place crowning champions. This week we’ve already seen Waymo win out over Uber in court; Sasha ‘Scarlett’ Hostyn, the most successful woman in eSports, was victorious in an Olympic-backed Starcraft 2 tournament; and Amazon came up with yet another way to dominate the delivery market — 2-hour Whole Foods deliveries. Numbers, because how else will you count the scorecards?

1,218: That’s how many UAVs lit up the night sky over the Olympic opening ceremony — or at least a projection of their aerial display did anyway. Turns out that Pyeongchang’s high winds and low temperatures aren’t ideal conditions for coordinated drone performances.

$50,000: That’s how much Sasha ‘Scarlett’ Hostyn won in the Intel Extreme Masters StarCraft 2 tournament hosted in Pyeongchang ahead of this weekend’s Winter Olympics.

0.34 percent: That’s how much of a stake in Uber Waymo now owns, roughly worth $245 million, having settled a lawsuit with its self-driving technology rival over some 14,000 illicitly-obtained trade secrets.

$500,000: That’s the purse size for Tencent’s upcoming Arena of Valor World Cup. The 10-player MOBA tournament will be held in Los Angeles this July.

$150: Buzz Aldrin wants you to make like Quaid and get your ass to Mars. He’d also very much like to sell you this here solar-powered backpack from Sprayground’s new “Mission to Mars” line to use when you get there.

2 hours: That’s how long you’ll have to wait for your groceries to arrive now that Whole Foods is offering Amazon Prime-style rapid delivery. The service is only available in certain neighborhoods in Austin, Cincinnati, Dallas and Virginia Beach but will surely roll out to more cities in the months ahead. And then we’ll never have to leave our houses again.

30 years: We can’t all be winners, no matter what our moms tell us. Now these two guys, these two knuckleheads right here, who tried to steal $9,000 from an ATM using the hot new jackpotting technique? These guys are now set to spend up to the next three decades in prison.

Olympics officials confirm cyberattack during opening ceremony

Officials saw suspicious activity on Olympics systems during the 2018 winter games’ opening ceremony, and now it’s confirmed: it was a cyberattack. PyeongChang organizers have revealed that someone compromised services (including internet and TV) while athletes were on parade. Everything had been “resolved and recovered” by the 9th, spokesman Sung Baik-you said. He added that they knew the cause of the attack, but were “not going to reveal the source” after talking to the International Olympics Committee.

It’s tempting to point the finger at Russia. The country has been banned from the Winter Olympics over its doping program, and security researchers had found hints that Russia-based hackers might disrupt the games as retribution. Russia has already tried to head off accusations by claiming that the Western press will conduct “pseudo-investigations” without evidence, but its word carries limited weight when it has a history of denying all attacks regardless of proof. State-sponsored Russian hackers are known to have leaked athletes’ files in the wake of the 2016 summer games in Rio.

While North Korea is just 50 miles away from PyeongChang and has a reputation for state-sponsored hacks (including against the South), it doesn’t have much incentive to target the games. Its athletes are competing alongside those from the South, and it used the games to offer a summit between ruler Kim Jong-un and the South’s President Moon Jae-in. Any hacks on the North’s part would undermine that attempt at peace.

Whoever’s responsible, the cyberattack is a sign of the times: even a competition focused on global harmony isn’t immune from digital intruders, whether they’re private or government-backed. If anything, the high profile represents a prime opportunity for hackers to make a statement.

Source: Reuters

How to Update the Software on Your HomePod

Like iOS devices, Macs, the Apple Watch, and the Apple TV, the HomePod will be updated with new software on a regular basis.

By default, updates are installed on your HomePod automatically, but there’s also a way to force an update if new software is released. Apple’s auto update function isn’t typically immediate, so it can sometimes be handy to have a way to manually install software.

Locating HomePod updates and checking on the software version you have installed is simple, but it’s not entirely intuitive because the update function is somewhat buried in the Home app.

Here’s how to get to it:

Open up the Home app.
Tap on the arrow in the upper left corner of the display.
Tap “Home Settings.”
Select “My Home” or “[My Name]’s Home” if you’ve changed the name of your HomeKit setup.
Scroll down to “Software Update.”
Pull down from the top of the iPhone or iPad screen to check for an update.

Once you’ve selected “Software Update,” you’ll be able to see the current version of the HomePod software that you have installed, and you can toggle off automatic updates if you want.

If there is an available update, you’ll just need to tap the “Install” button to update your HomePod. If you have multiple HomePods in your home, each one will be updated at the same time through this software update feature.

Related Roundup: HomePodBuyer’s Guide: HomePod (Buy Now)
Discuss this article in our forums

How to Ask Siri on HomePod to Play Apple Music Playlists, Genres, Moods, and More

One of the main uses for Siri on HomePod is to control your Apple Music collection. There are Siri voice commands for accessing content like playlists, genres, moods, liking or disliking songs, playing more music based on something you’ve heard, starting a new radio station, and much more.

Because the list of Siri commands is so extensive, this guide won’t be covering every possible option and genre supported by available through Siri, but it should serve as a good starting point when getting to know what exactly your HomePod can do with your Apple Music library.

Playlists and Library

Your playlists may be the content you’ll interact with most often in Apple Music, and Siri on HomePod can play any Apple Music playlist you’ve made in the past on an iOS device or Mac. Siri can also play Apple Music’s personally curated mix playlists.

For items in your library, use the “play my” command and Siri will play albums and songs already added to your library. For everything else, Siri will play any songs available on Apple Music, even if they aren’t in your library yet.

• “Hey Siri, play my Book Time playlist.”
• “Hey Siri, shuffle my Book Time playlist.”
• “Hey Siri, add this song to my Book Time playlist.”
• “Hey Siri, add this to my library.”
• “Hey Siri, play My New Music Mix.”
• “Hey Siri, play the A-List Pop playlist.”
• “Hey Siri, play my music from Sam Smith.”
• “Hey Siri, play the newest music from Vance Joy.”

Genres, Moods, and Radio

Siri can understand a wide range of commands requesting various musical genres and moods found in Apple Music. You can find some of these moods in Apple Music itself by navigating to the Browse tab, tapping Playlists, then looking through all of the Activities and Moods. You can also request songs based on decades, specific years, and exact dates. We’ve compiled a few examples below to get you started.

• “Hey Siri, play some recent pop music.”
• “Hey Siri, play some chill music.”
• “Hey Siri, play some romantic music.”
• “Hey Siri, play some music to dance to.”
• “Hey Siri, play the best songs from the ’90s.”
• “Hey Siri, play the top 10 songs from 1986.”
• “Hey Siri, play the top song from April 17, 1992.”
• “Hey Siri, create a radio station based on The Killers.”

Here are some examples of more keywords that you could enter into the above commands:

• Sad
• Angry
• Lazy
• Somber
• Calm
• Fun
• Romance
• Weekend
• Cooking
• Party
• Workout
• Focus
• Motivation
• Bedtime

You’ll also find the same results for essentially every genre, like Country, Alternative, Blues, and others.

General Controls

There are multiple commands you can relay to Siri to control music playback, with some examples below.

• “Hey Siri, play music.”
• “Hey Siri, pause.”
• “Hey Siri, skip this song.”
• “Hey Siri, skip forward 30 seconds.”
• “Hey Siri, jump back 10 seconds.”
• “Hey Siri, previous track.”
• “Hey Siri, raise/lower the volume.”
• “Hey Siri, increase the volume to 50 percent.”
• “Hey Siri, turn on repeat.”

Other Commands

• “Hey Siri, play Party in the USA.”
• “Hey Siri, I like/dislike this.”
• “Hey Siri, what song is this?”
• “Hey Siri, what was the last song called?”
• “Hey Siri, who sings this?”
• “Hey Siri, who is the drummer in this?”
• “Hey Siri, what year is this song from?”
• “Hey Siri, how many songs are on this album?”
• “Hey Siri, play more like this.”
• “Hey Siri, after this play Rolling in the Deep.”
• “Hey Siri, play some Florence and the Machine.”
• “Hey Siri, tell me more about this artist.”
• “Hey Siri, I want to hear the live version of this song.”

If you ever want to revisit the playlists and radio stations that Siri creates for you through voice commands on HomePod, head over to the For You tab in Apple Music. If you scroll down a bit, you should see “Recently Played” filled with the content that Siri played on HomePod.

If you have any other useful Siri commands we didn’t mention, be sure to share them in the comments.

Related Roundup: HomePodBuyer’s Guide: HomePod (Buy Now)
Discuss this article in our forums

Forget clamps. You can make this stylish box table with some glue and tape

The stylish Mid-Century modern side table in the video above has a wonderfully minimal design that looks sweet in any setting. Better yet, it’s surprisingly easy to make, with a super-fast technique for assembling the box, and hairpin legs that simply screw on.

You can make the box in all sorts of dimensions: Square and sculptural, long and narrow with taller legs from that turn it into a hall or sofa table, or even wide and shallow as a desktop.

To bring the table to life, you can use one of the coolest woodworking tricks in the game — wrapping up a mitered box with packing tape. If you get all the angles right, you’ll get a gorgeous result with the wood grain wrapping seamlessly around the corners. Here’s what you’ll need to get started:

Tools and Materials

• Wood slab (dimensions are up to you, but we used an 8″ by 6′ pine board, 1 inch thick)
• Hairpin legs (mounting screws included)
• Wood glue
• Packing tape
• Finish
• Miter saw
• Drill/driver

Miter magic

To grasp the genius of the tape trick, you first need to understand that “miter” is an old-timey carpenter’s word for a 45-degree joint. Cut a 45-degree angle at the end of each piece, put them together, and you magically get a right angle.

Next, you need to understand how tricky it can be to clamp miters together. Gluey miters are slippery creatures. Carpenters typically just shoot a nail into the side of mitered trim to make sure it stay put, but nails don’t look that nice in furniture. That’s where this tape trick comes in.

After you cut 45-degree bevels on the end of the box parts, using a tablesaw or miter saw, you put all the pieces in a row, with the bevels facing down. Then you connect them all with packing tape, making sure they are lined up straight, and pulling the sharp tips of each miter close together as you go. Packing tape is perfect because it’s strong, it lets you look through it to see what’s going on, and it peels off afterward without leaving gunk on the wood. Press and rub the tape to get a good bond.

Next, you flip over the whole row so the bevels are facing up and the tape is on the bottom. It can be hard to flip all the pieces without the tape coming loose, but it helps a lot to pull them off the front edge of a table a little bit and hold a long stick against the top and bottom to keep the pieces aligned while you flip them.

Now brush some wood glue onto all the miters. These bevels are end grain, which tends to drink up a lot of glue, so put a little extra on if the joints look dry. Here comes the magic.

With the tape firmly in place, you can simply fold up the pieces to form the box, watching the tape pull all the corners tight. That just leaves one last corner to pull together, which you should do firmly, stretching more tape over it to lock that last joint.

Now leave the box for a few hours (or preferably an entire day) to let the glue dry. Then, peel away the tape and do your sanding and finishing before attaching the legs.

Keys to success

To get good results with the tape trick, you need to get a fews things really right about your box parts. First, the board you use needs to be perfectly straight, with square, parallel edges and uniform thickness. In other words, it needs to be milled and tablesawn by someone who knows what they’re doing. That might well be you, but it could also be the friendly folks at your local lumberyard. Better yet, find a hardwood dealer. They’ll have better boards and be more willing to mill and size them as needed.

Second, if you cut the miters with a sliding miter saw like we did, the board can only be as wide as your saw will cut, so check that first.

Once you’ve got a beautiful board that’s milled straight and true, the next big step is to get the cuts right. To get tight, strong joints, you’ll need opposite workpieces (top and bottom, left and right) to be exactly the same length, and the 45-degree angles to be dead-on. Get any of that wrong, and you’ll get gaps in your box.

Start with the miter saw. Before you start the project, give it a quick test by tipping it over to the 45-degree setting and making a couple cuts in a flat piece of scrap board — or better yet, a piece of plywood or MDF. After that, put the two the two mitered edges together and check the resulting corner with a square. If it’s not right, you’ll need to adjust your saw.

Additionally, you’ll need to get the parts cut to the right lengths. For a square box, that means all four sides should be perfectly equal. For a rectangle (like ours), all the opposing sides will need to match up (ours is one foot tall on the sides, and 1.5 feet long on the top and bottom). To make that happen, you’ll need to set up a stop on your miter saw or tablesaw.

Start by mitering one end of each workpiece. To make a stop for your miter saw, screw a long stick to the fence, and then screw a block somewhere along it to catch the mitered end you just cut. That will ensure that every workpiece you bump up against that stop comes out the same length.

To check your work, stand all the parts on edge and see if all of the joints come together okay. If they don’t, make some adjustments and recut the edges. If they do, enjoy that tape trick!

If everything goes wrong and the tape just isn’t applying enough pressure to pull the joints together, there’s a solution — but you’ll have to surrender and buy some clamps. Start by pulling the box apart and recutting the miters, then use band clamps like these from Rockler. Three should do the trick, putting tremendous pressure on the middle and near the edges.

How to wax a snowboard

If you’ve ever lost speed on a long traverse or had to unstrap your bindings on a flat cat track, you know how important it is to have a freshly waxed snowboard. Keeping your board regularly waxed allows you to go faster downhill, glide smoother along traverses, and exert more control in tight trees. It also keeps your base in good shape, extending the life of your snowboard.

Tune shops, however, are expensive and time-consuming. If you want to wax your board on a consistent basis, the easiest and most cost-effective way is to learn to do it yourself. Fortunately, that’s a lot easier than it looks. To learn how to wax a snowboard properly, all you need is a few pieces of equipment, a brief tutorial, and a little practice — you’ll be working like a pro in no time. Here’s the best way to wax a snowboard yourself.

Things to consider

What type of wax is best?

Before you get started, you want to consider what type of wax to use. If it’s the middle of an exceptionally cold winter, or you live in a dry climate where the temperature gauge rarely hits two digits, you’ll want to invest in a good cold-weather wax. Conversely, if it’s late-March and you’ve already stocked up on spring riding shorts, you’ll want a warm weather wax that’s specifically formulated for spring conditions. Anything in the middle and an all-weather wax is your best bet.

How often should you wax your snowboard?

The next thing to think about is how often to wax your snowboard, which largely depends on how often you ride. Opinions range but most people agree you should wax your board every three to 10 times you ride. Specific riding style also plays a factor. If you’re an aggressive snowboarder who hits a lot of manmade features that wear on the wax — or if you stomp a lot of landings that put pressure on your base — you’re going to need to do it more often. If you’re a fairly casual rider who doesn’t work the board as intensely, you likely won’t need to do it as often.

How fast you want to go is another factor — in essence, how important is speed to you? If you like to play in the snow and aren’t concerned with race-style performance, you don’t need to wax your board religiously. If you want to charge like hell and be the first one to the lift line every time, you need to wax practically every session — or at least more frequently than your peers.

The last thing to consider is the type of board you use. Riders whose board has a sintered base need to wax more frequently whereas extruded bases tend to be able to go a bit longer. Although the porousness of a sintered base absorbs tons of wax and ultimately rides faster than extruded bases, it becomes slower than its extruded counterparts when wax is low.

Really, the best gauge you have to tell when it’s time to wax your board is simply how it feels. If you notice it’s starting to slow down, it’s time to give it a wax.

From the Editor’s Desk: Nothing on your phone is worth looking at while you drive

Smartphone addiction is a real thing. And it has serious consequences when it’s combined with driving.

In the last couple weeks, both my girlfriend and I have come within inches of being hit by cars while walking, in crosswalks, in downtown Seattle. Unfortunately this isn’t the only time that’s happened to us, nor is it exclusive to us or this city. Every single day in every city I visit, I see drivers blow through lights, stop in crosswalks and generally disrespect pedestrians. What’s obviously changed in the last few years is the root cause: people aren’t necessarily more rude or worse drivers, they’re just trying to use their phones while driving. Each and every time I see a car get close to hitting a pedestrian, I can look in the window and see that their hand is on a phone.

In the case of my girlfriend’s near-miss, the offending driver was on a video call on her phone while she was driving through the city — so she drove right through a red light without even recognizing she had done so. A video call. While she was driving. If that’s not a perfect example for how bad this problem has become, I don’t know what is.

The NHTSA’s numbers from 2015 show over 390,000 people injured and 3,400 killed specifically by distracted driving in that year. Not all of them are phone-related. And not all of them could have necessarily been prevented — but so many could have if people chose to put down their phone and pay attention to the world around their car. And no matter how many could have actually been prevented by putting down the phone, we know that nothing on that phone at the time was more important than the injury or death caused by it.

Your incoming message, or email, or Instagram notification, or video call is never important enough to take your eyes and mind off of the task at hand: driving.

Nothing on your phone is important enough to take your eyes and mind off of driving.

Self-driving cars and general driver assistance systems are on a massive upswing right now. They’re extremely exciting and it’s clear that even the simplest of technology like adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitoring, forward collision warning and surround cameras are making driving safer for drivers and pedestrians alike. But for now, people are still responsible for driving the cars. “Smartphone addiction” certainly has an effect on our lives in many ways. But driving while you’re using your phone is one time where your addiction to looking at this little piece of technology could kill someone.

Best universal car mounts for your phone

I don’t drive all that often; about half of the U.S. national average per year. Thankfully I have a situation in which neither myself nor my girlfriend drive to work. I also have a car that I love and really enjoy driving — it doesn’t feel like a burden to get in and go where I need to. But when I drive, I’ve made a serious effort to dramatically reduce phone interaction. Android Auto on my phone has been a massive help. (Sadly my car’s infotainment system doesn’t have Android Auto available.) A new phone mount that keeps my maps and music a quick glance away is another. Buying a new car with Bluetooth, built-in microphones and address book/dialing support obviously made hands-free calls easy.

But the biggest change has just been deciding that looking at my phone while driving isn’t worth it. Many of us have been in near-miss car accident situations. I’ve been in so many, all as a pedestrian, that I just couldn’t continue to drive and interact with my phone. Getting in a fender bender because you checked your phone while going 10 mph on a city street is an annoyance and maybe a cause for your insurance to go up. Hitting a pedestrian while going 10 mph could seriously injure them. If that person was pushing a stroller, you may have just killed a child.

I make sure I have my podcast or music set up on my phone before I pull out of my garage. When Android Auto notifies me of a message, I wait until an opportune time to even deal with it via voice controls. When I’m driving, I’m driving. If I didn’t want to drive, I could take the bus or train and devote 99% of my attention to my phone. I could also wait until the end of my trip to pull out my phone and check notifications. I have put a huge emphasis on this lately. I just wish millions of other people would, too.

And with that, a few more thoughts on the week that was:

• Both Daniel Bader and I spent a couple days down in sunny San Diego meeting with Qualcomm. Lots of interesting stuff happening down there — with the brands and products we know, like processors, but also many other things you don’t normally associate with the company.
• As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been back on my Galaxy S8 for a few weeks now. Expect to see a 10-month follow-up review this week as we get ready for the GS9.
• The GS8 has generally held up and I’ve enjoyed using it. But the software still bugs me sometimes, that fingerprint sensor placement is horrible, the battery life has been mediocre and the camera was clearly leapfrogged by the Pixel 2.
• I leave for Barcelona to cover MWC 2018 in 10 days. Amazing how quickly it snuck up on us after CES.
• This is going to be Samsung’s show, for sure, but she shows are always great opportunities to see some other companies we don’t normally have an opportunity to spend one-on-one time with.
• Also, it’s a time to eat the wonderful food in Barcelona. I’ve been craving paella for weeks.

Have a great week, and drive safe.

-Andrew

Ben Heck’s ‘Hex’ game: Will it sell?

Would you like to be able to buy Ben Heck’s “Hex” game? The team is joined by James Ray from the design company AVID to discuss whether Hex could be brought to market and if there are any tweaks that would need to be made first. What would you change to the design? Would you add anything? Let us know over on the element14 Community.

How to Use HomePod to Control Your HomeKit Devices

Apple’s new $349 HomePod sounds incredible and is the ultimate speaker for Apple Music subscribers, but it’s also an excellent way to manage your HomeKit-compatible devices through Siri voice commands.

Controlling HomeKit accessories with Siri on HomePod isn’t radically different from controlling them via an iOS device, but there are some extra HomePod benefits to be aware of.

HomePod and HomeKit Setup

If you’ve never used HomeKit before and you purchase a HomePod, when you set it up it’s added to HomeKit and to the Home app.

Setup includes a step asking you to choose a Home you’re using HomePod in, and if you don’t have Home settings already established, it’ll let you choose the default “My Home” option, which is established for every iCloud account. If you use HomeKit already like I do, you can choose your existing home, if it has a different name.

From there, you’ll choose the room where your HomePod is located, which is also a HomeKit setup step. You’ll be familiar with this if you’ve ever used HomeKit before.

With these two setup steps, you establish a HomeKit setup if you didn’t have one before. HomePod itself is a HomeKit accessory, and it’s controlled and managed in the dedicated “Home” app along with all other HomeKit accessories.

HomePod in the Home App

The HomePod is listed in the Home app as an available accessory, and if you’re a HomeKit user, you know how this works. If you’re not, the Home app isn’t tough to navigate.

Your HomePod will be listed as “HomePod” on the main screen, and if you tap it, it will either play or pause your music. A 3D Touch or a long press on the HomePod icon in the Home app opens up a full menu where you can get to the HomePod settings by tapping on “Details.”

This is where you can change HomeKit settings like turning off Siri, deactivating the Siri lights, disabling listening history, and more. Your HomePod is controlled entirely through the Home app.

Home Hub

HomePod, like the Apple TV and iPad, serves as a home hub, which means it communicates with all of your HomeKit devices all the time, allowing you to control them even when you’re away from home.

A home hub is essential for controlling HomeKit devices remotely and setting up automations based on time of day, location, or conditions detected by HomeKit-compatible sensors. If you have an Apple TV or an iPad, you’ve already got a home hub and don’t need to worry about this functionality, but if you don’t, this is added bonus functionality.

HomePod as a home hub covers all of the HomeKit devices in your home, even if they’re not located close by the HomePod itself.

Siri on HomePod

One of the best benefits of the HomePod is how well it can hear and react to “Hey Siri” commands. It will hear you from across the room with loud music playing, and it’s so sensitive that it’s even going to detect the “Hey Siri” command if you whisper it nearby.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the HomePod’s listening capabilities work incredibly well, so for HomeKit-based voice commands, it’s much better than attempting to use an iPhone. You can essentially say “Hey Siri” and repeat a HomeKit command from anywhere in a room with a HomePod, and you’re going to get a speedy response.

The listening range far exceeds the iPhone or iPad, and it makes the HomePod the perfect hands-free device for controlling everything from the lights to the door locks. Longtime HomeKit users who often use voice commands will find this much simpler, and HomeKit users who don’t often use Siri should give the personal assistant a second chance on HomePod.

By the way, if you have both a HomePod and an iOS device that responds to “Hey Siri,” when you speak, it will almost always default to the HomePod. This is because all of your devices communicate with one another and are smart enough to know that the HomePod is the device that you’re aiming to use.

TIP: Don’t pause between “Hey Siri” and whatever HomeKit command you’re speaking. If you want to turn on the lights, for example, say “Hey Siri turn on the lights” all at once rather than saying “Hey Siri” and waiting for a response. Siri on the HomePod works well enough that a pause isn’t required, and it can even confuse your HomeKit commands if you insert a pause.

Manually Activating Siri

If you want to issue a Siri command without “Hey Siri,” you can do so by placing a finger on the HomePod and leaving it there for a few seconds until the Siri waveform lights come on. From there, Siri works as usual.

HomePod Siri Commands

While Siri on HomePod is excellent at detecting “Hey Siri” commands, Apple hasn’t implemented any upgrades to the way Siri is controlled via voice on the HomePod. If you already use Siri to manage HomeKit devices on iOS, Siri on HomePod works in the exact same way.

If you’re new to Siri and HomeKit, though, there are tons of commands you can use, many of which are specific to certain devices. With lights, for example, you can use some of the following commands:

• Hey Siri, turn on the lights
• Hey Siri, turn off the lights
• Hey Siri, dim the lights
• Hey Siri, make all of the lights in the office maximum brightness
• Hey Siri, are the lights in the office on?
• Hey Siri, turn all of the lights in the office blue
• Hey Siri, turn the Hue lightstrip purple

HomeKit commands vary, so you’ll need to learn the different options available for each device. With locks, for example, you can ask Siri to lock or unlock the door, and if you have a temperature sensor or thermostat, you can ask Siri what the temperature is.

Scenes and automation are a major part of HomeKit, but there’s no voice-based way to set these up. If you want to link your HomeKit devices together to have them do certain things at set times of day, such as turning on all of the lights at night, you’re going to need to set that up in the Home app or a third-party HomeKit app.

That said, Scenes are incredibly useful, and you can set up handy automations for waking up, going to bed, leaving home, arriving home, and more, and all of these can be controlled via HomePod by asking Siri to set the scene name. If you have a night time scene called “Good Night,” for example, you can trigger it just by saying “Hey Siri, Good Night.”

Conclusion

If you already have a HomeKit setup, the HomePod has some handy features that make it a worthwhile purchase, and if you have a HomePod but no HomeKit devices, it may be worth looking into HomeKit accessories because they work so well with HomePod.

For those of you who have never used Siri with HomeKit or have abandoned Siri because of spotty results, it’s worth giving Siri on HomePod another try. In my experience as a longtime HomeKit user, HomePod is a solid evolutionary step towards a better hands-free home automation setup.

“Hey Siri” on HomePod seems to be more responsive on HomePod, and it’s easier to use because you don’t need to make sure your iPhone is close at hand to accomplish tasks around the house.

Related Roundup: HomePodTag: HomeKitBuyer’s Guide: HomePod (Buy Now)
Discuss this article in our forums