Issue with Siri, HomeKit, Garage door, and needing to unlock iPhone first

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Issue with Siri, HomeKit, Garage door, and needing to unlock iPhone first

Hi,

I’m running into an issue. I have a Meross garage door controller hooked up to my garage door which is connected to my wifi and home hub device (Apple TV Gen 5 purchased specifically for this task) I’m up to date on OS and I’ve allowed Siri access to home control while locked. I also have my Apple Watch set to unlock my phone as well so theoretically with it on my wrist my phone should be unlocked. I’ve restarted the devices involved several times and am getting the same issue.

When I hit the assistant button and ask Siri to open the garage door it infuriatingly asks me to unlock the iPhone first. This is super frustrating because I purchased this whole Rube Goldberg contraption because I wanted to be able to ask Siri to open up the garage via my Cardo intercom system while riding my motorcycle up the street so I can pull right into the garage without having to sit there idling and fumbling for the remote inside my jacket with gloved hands (I’d personally want to get rid of the garage door remote entirely). I’ve had it work like this 3 times and it’s a beautiful thing.

Is there something I’m doing wrong? Ideally I’d like to not have to wear the Apple Watch. I only wear it for this task and prefer wearing a mechanical watch but will wear it if it solves this issue.

The home kit app works flawlessly btw and Siri works with the thing fine as long as my phone is unlocked. I ride with my phone in my pants pocket so I can’t leave it unlocked obviously.

iPhone 13 Pro

Posted on Aug 10, 2023 12:00 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

tannerl2

Level 3

866 points

Aug 10, 2023 12:43 PM in response to DavidRosenthal

I have been using HomeKit / Siri with my garage door for about a year. It’s always required me to unlock my iPhone if I do the request through Siri on my phone while locked, or when making the request through a HomePod. The Apple Watch has been the only way I’ve been able to not need to unlock the iPhone.

You might be able to setup a Siri Shortcut that opens the garage door with a custom phrase. If you make a Siri Shortcut, you can change the Privacy setting to enable “Allow Running When Locked.”

Create a new Shortcut:

+ Add Action > type Home in the search bar > choose the one that says “Control” next to the name of your home. It’ll show you the action as “Set” with “Scenes and Accessories” next to it. Click on “Scenes and Accessories” and choose your Garage Door. Set the Garage Door to open and click “Done.” Name the Shortcut whatever you’d like.

Repeat these steps to make a Siri Shortcut for closing your Garage Door, but set the Garage Door to “close” instead of “open” that time.

Once you have the Siri Shortcut built, hold down the Shortcut in the list of shortcuts, and choose Details. Then click Privacy and you’ll have the option to “Allow Running When Locked.”

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Answer 2

Aug 10, 2023 02:32 PM in response to tannerl2

Thanks! Tried giving this a go and still no luck when locked. I did a settings reset on my device and still didn’t work. Oddly when I went into Face ID & Passcode and toggle on Home Control under devices that Siri has access to when locked then close the menu and re-open it the selection is back in the “off” position.

I switched to a 6 digit pass code and its now working. At least on my phone. Will have to see if it works on my helmet

Seems like Apple put a similar amount of energy and thought into this product as they did the broadcasters for their baseball broadcasts 😂.

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Answer 3

Sep 21, 2023 03:55 PM in response to DavidRosenthal

I discovered a pretty good hack to resolve this problem since the password change only worked for a few days and I really hate wearing the Apple Watch on the bike anyways.

I noticed that Siri will always close the garage door regardless of if the phone is unlocked so I removed the sensor and just say “close the garage door” obviously shows the door is obstructed (I’ve got a Wyze camera in the garage so don’t need that information in HomeKit) the meross simply triggers a short and the opener cycles. Fingers crossed it’s worked for the last two weeks.

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Issue with Siri, HomeKit, Garage door, and needing to unlock iPhone first

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