Sensory: A Key to The New Siri Era

In the fast-paced world of technology, even a single word can make a difference. Apple, one of the industry’s pioneers, has recently announced a significant change in their voice assistant service. Instead of the former “Hey Siri” wake word (or hotword), users can now simply invoke Siri by saying “Siri” across iPhone, iPad, Mac, HomePod, and other devices. 

For the uninitiated, Sensory Inc. specializes in vision and voice technologies and has been a vanguard in delivering safer and superior User Experience (UX) across various platforms. Its ground-breaking TrulyHandsfree™, an edge-based wake word and phrase recognition engine, has been lauded for its innovation and has found its way into billions of consumer electronics, including mobile phones, smart speakers, wearables, smart appliances, automobiles, medical, enterprise solutions and more. 

Sensory’s TrulyHandsfree voice control delivers unparalleled accuracy, even in challenging acoustic environments with background noise, accented speech, and far-field conditions. Notably, Sensory’s TrulyHandsfree has been integrated into numerous chips and platforms, including Ambiq-Apollo 3 & 4, AMlogic, Analog Devices, Arm, Cadence, CEVA, Cirrus, Cypress, DSPG, Fortemedia, General Plus, GigaDevice, Knowles, Nuvoton, NXP, Qualcomm, Renesas, Silicon Labs, ST Micro, Texas Instruments, Times Intelli, and XMOS and more.

One of the highlights of Sensory’s robust technology portfolio is its support for ‘Hey Siri‘ wake word models across dozens of different countries. With Apple’s decision to enable Siri activation on third-party devices through HomeKit and Matter, Sensory’s expertise becomes even more pertinent. The fact that the “hey Siri” wake word (with ultra low power) has shipped in products with the MFi (Made for iPhone/iPad) approval is a testament to its efficacy and reliability.

We’re excited to share that Sensory currently meets the stringent requirements for the new “Enhanced Siri” aka just “Siri” wake word (hotword). This represented a significant technical and linguistic challenge due to the phrase’s brevity and testing/approval requirements. The lack of a “Hey” preceding “Siri” necessitated that the recognition model be highly accurate yet small enough not to drain energy resources for the always on, always listening feature of a wake word.    

The shift from “Hey Siri” to “Siri” may seem small, but its implications are massive. At Sensory, we recognize the importance of a reliable, precise wake word performance for a positive and private user experience. Our experience and technology are already meeting this new demand and helps manufacturers seamlessly integrate this updated feature into their devices.

Apple’s recent announcement underlines a growing trend towards shorter, more natural ways to interact with technology. It’s a significant shift, and Sensory is proud to be leading the charge with the most accurate and flexible wake word technology in the industry.