Location, Location, Location

One of the best examples of Siri's power is her ability to accomplish multiple tasks based on a single request.  The use of location-based reminders using Geo-fencing demonstrates this useful feature fairly well. This is the ability to ask Siri to remind you of something when you arrive or depart a known location (ex. "remind me to get milk at Acme"). The requirement for this feature takes a little extra set-up for anything besides Home or Work as a place and has tended to be somewhat trickey for many who are trying to use it.

The fist thing is to obviously make sure Location Services are turned ON in Siri.  Second, is to make sure that iCloud settings (Settings -> iCloud) has Reminders set ON.

Next, under Settings -> "Mail, Contacts, Calendar", scroll all the way down the page and make sure the Reminders "Default List" is set to use Reminders under iCloud.

Now for some important tweaks to Contacts. It is important that places you want to refer to as a location are properly set-up in your Contacts.  Besides the obvious things like the name and address of the place ("Acme Food"), it appears that also setting up a nickname is important for Siri to use that contacts location for reminders.  This is accomplished by editing the contact and then scroling down to "Add a Field" and clicking.

This will bring up fields you can select. Choose the Nickname field at the bottom of the first section and enter the name you will use to reference that location ("Acme", "grocery store", etc.).  This is how Siri will know this is the place or contact you are asking to be located.  Save the edited contact and wait briefly as it is uploaded to iCloud, which appears to be fairly quickly, but may not be immediate enough to work instantly.  It can take minutes at times.

Now you are ready to have Siri be the nagging reminder you need based on where you are at the moment with your phone on you.


Some tips: Speak your commands in a fluid voice without hesitations or breaks.  If you say, "remind me to get bread..." and then hesitate before saying where and when, Siri will then jump in and ask you when you want the reminder.  You then would need to say, "at Acme", however it seems this is more prone to failure than when she accepts it in a single statement.  Instead, say, "remind me to get bread at Acme" in one flowing command and you can then avoid having to add that additional clarification.  If successful, she will then show you the Reminder and ask for a confirmation or cancellation.  If you have several different food stores you shop at, may want to make sure you use a nickname that you will remember.  Using "grocery store" would be fine only if you live in a town with only one grocery store or only frequent that one store for food. It also is wise to see what Siri is using when you speak the location name.  It could be a simple case of pronunciation, which is easily solved.