Denon speakers can now invoke Siri, but only if you have a HomePod too

When it comes to smart assistant availability, Apple has taken a vastly different approach with Siri than Amazon has with Alexa. Whereas the latter assistant can come baked into a variety of non-Amazon smart devices, Apple has largely restricted Siri to its own first-party products. One exception came in late 2021 when ecobee added support for Siri in its SmartThermostat. Now, three years later, a second product has received Siri integration.

As reported by HomeKit News, Denon now supports invoking Siri via its wireless speakers and sound bar. You can use the standard “Hey Siri” phrase to ask the assistant to control playback on the speakers or perform one of its other supported tasks.

There’s a bit of an asterisk on this integration, which applies to ecobee’s SmartThermostat too: in order for Siri to work, you need to also own a HomePod or HomePod mini.

This is because Apple’s Siri isn’t fully baked into the third-party devices that support it, but rather, the assistant relies on an Apple smart speaker like the HomePod or HomePod mini to do all the actual processing of your requests.

Essentially, the Denon speakers and ecobee SmartThermostat simply serve as extensions of a HomePod’s own Siri, bringing the assistant into rooms of the house where you don’t already have a HomePod.

9to5Mac’s Take

I haven’t used Siri via a Denon speaker or ecobee thermostat, but I imagine the need to relay all requests through a nearby HomePod doesn’t make for the best user experience. Any additional lag in responses introduced by this system would likely cause me to use Siri through these devices only when I absolutely had to.

It’s nice that Apple provides some sort of Siri option for third parties, but this doesn’t seem like the right solution. It’s no wonder we haven’t seen other device makers add Siri support in the three years since ecobee did.

Do you have a compatible Denon speaker? Have you tried the Siri integration? Let us know in the comments.