Labeled Siri Alarms

I’ve written before that Siri, in spite of its flaws, is improving quickly. To that end, I occasionally challenge myself to think of ways that it might make my repeated tasks even more effortless.

I alternate mornings with my wife, taking either our 4-year-old, Matthew, to school, or our 7-year-old, Henry, to a different school. The responsibilities come with a different wake-up time, so I have two pre-set alarms in my phone: one for 7:00AM, and one for 7:45AM.

On a typical weeknight I set one or the other, either by tapping into the Clock app and toggling it on, or by asking Siri to for example “wake me up at 7:45AM.” It’s smart enough at least to notice the existing alarm, and doesn’t set a redundant one. Today I thought it would be nice to add labels to my alarms, so that when I’m awakened, any doubt about what my responsibilities are will be quickly clarified:

Image of Clock app configured with labeled alarm

Having labeled the alarms, I thought I’d test Siri’s prowess: “Hey Siri, set my Henry School Day alarm.” Sigh. No dice:

Image of Siri interface with request to set an alarm not understood.

Here’s an example where Siri is frustratingly dense about something that seems so obvious, at least in retrospect. All is not lost, though. It turns out that although it doesn’t have a clue what “my Henry School Day alarm” is, it knows full well what “the Henry School Day alarm” is:

Image of Siri interface accepting request to set an alarm by label name.

I’ve filed Radar #26696594 requesting that “Siri should recognize MY alarms as readily as THE alarms”.