How To Activate Siri On Iphone Se

Apple is slowly upping its virtual assistant game with iOS 15. The new operating system allows Siri to assist you offline. After spending plenty of time with iOS 15 Beta, I've figured out a way to activate and use Siri offline.

In this detailed guide, let's understand how to enable Siri without the internet, along with some of the voice commands you can use with it.

What is offline Siri in iOS 15?
Devices that support Siri without the internet
How to enable offline Siri on iPhone running iOS 15
Tips to use Siri without the internet on iPhone
Why is using Siri without cellular data better?

What is offline Siri in iOS 15?

iOS 15 finally utilizes the processing power of your iPhone. Siri can now understand and take action on what you say without the need for an internet connection. So whether you're in a patchy connection zone or even in flight mode, you can use Siri offline without waiting for it to load.

Devices that support Siri without the internet

Siri on iOS 15 utilizes the core power of your iPhone's neural chipset. Understanding human speech for a computer device is a challenging task. Hence, it requires a chipset with high processing power. Due to this, Apple has limited offline Siri to iPhones with A12 Bionic or a newer chip.

Following are the iPads and iPhones that support Siri without the internet.

iPhone XS and later (except iPhone SE)
iPad Mini (5th Gen)
iPad Air (3rd and 4th Gen)
iPad (8th Gen)
iPad Pro (2017 and later)

First of all, you'll need to download and install iOS 15 on your iPhone. Apple says that the stable iOS 15 release will be "in the fall" but, you don't need to wait for the stable release. You can turn on offline Siri on iOS 15 Beta as well. Here's how:

How to enable offline Siri on iPhone running iOS 15

Open iPhone Settings.
Scroll down and tap Siri & Search.
Note: Offline Siri currently works only with English (United States). However, support for more languages will be added soon.
Select Language → English (United States).
Toggle on Listen for "Hey Siri".
Now, go to Siri Responses and toggle on Always Show Siri Captions and Always Show Speech.

Siri should now work without the cellular data on your iPhone. You can try it by disabling Mobile data and Wi-Fi and summoning "Hey Siri."

Tips to use Siri without the internet on iPhone

As expected, Siri can't perform web searches or any other tasks that may require an internet connection when offline. But, there are a lot of things you can ask Siri to do when you don't have an internet connection.

Set timers and Alarms
Change theme on your iPhone
Launch apps, control music, call someone
Change iPhone's Settings
Read messages and notifications

1. Set timers and Alarms

You can now ask Siri to set timers and alarms when it's not connected to the internet by simply saying, "set a timer for 5 minutes" or "set the alarm for 10 AM."

Set timers and Alarms with offline Siri on iPhone

If you're anything like me and set hundreds of alarms to wake up every morning, well now when you (finally) wake up, you can ask Siri to just "turn off all the alarms." Even Google Assistant doesn't support this feature yet.

Siri will also give a visual confirmation of what it understands as you speak so that you can mend the timers right away.

2. Change theme on your iPhone

You can ask offline Siri to enable or disable dark mode on your iPhone. Just say "turn on dark mode" or "turn off dark mode" to trigger it.

Change theme on your iPhone using offline Siri

However, offline Siri doesn't support increasing or decreasing your iPhone's brightness just yet. Hopefully, the feature would be added in a future update.

3. Launch apps, control music, call someone

You can ask Siri to perform basic tasks like playing and pausing music or launching apps. Just summon Siri and say "launch Photos" to quickly launch Photos app on your iPhone. Similarly, you can ask Siri to call a contact by saying, "Hey Siri, call [contact's name]."

Launch apps, control music, call someone using offline Siri

4. Change iPhone's Settings

Offline Siri can also change your iPhone settings. You can turn on flight mode, enable/disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and ask Siri to turn on your iPhone's mobile data.

Change iPhone's Settings with offline Siri

5. Read messages and notifications

Siri can also read notifications and messages in iOS 15. Just ask Siri to "read all the notifications," and it will indeed start reading your recent notifications one by one.

Read messages and notifications with offline Siri on iPhone

Why is using Siri without cellular data better?

Using Siri offline has several advantages, with the most obvious one being able to use the virtual assistant without an internet connection. However, there are a few other key benefits that make this feature stand out.

Privacy: One of the significant benefits of this feature is that Siri now tries to perform speech recognition on-device. Since the virtual assistant performs tasks on-device, your speech data never leaves your iPhone.
Faster voice commands processing: Siri now stores all data required for speech recognition on your iPhone. This means it doesn't require the internet to upload your speech data, process it, and perform the task you asked for.
As a result of processing data on-device, using Siri has become faster than ever. Just try using Siri without the internet, and you'll realize how fast it is.

I hope you have now understood how you can enable offline Siri on iPhone running iOS 15. What do you think about this feature? Which is your favorite iOS 15 feature? Let us know in the comments section below!

You would like to read these as well:

How to use SharePlay on FaceTime in iOS 15 on iPhone
How to use Focus mode in iOS 15 on iPhone and iPad
How to set up Health Sharing in iOS 15 on iPhone
How to send audio messages with Siri from iPhone

Sanuj is passionate about technology and all things Apple. He is currently freelancing at iGeeksBlog and iPhoneHacks, covering news, and writing about comparisons, DIY tutorials, software tips, and tricks, How-Tos, and diving deep into iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows platforms.