Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#1

Post by sudhirj » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 2:17 PM UTC

This is something that struck me a few moments ago, because it's very logical but completely unexpected. I have a Macbook Pro that's doing some hard work with the fans on loud, and calling Siri turns the fans off the period that Siri is listening.

It's pretty amazing someone thought of that.

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#2

Post by ianbertolacci » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 2:26 PM UTC

Is there a timeout?

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#3

Post by bdcrazy » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 2:30 PM UTC

My car does this when doing voice commands for radio or Phone.

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#4

Post by crymer11 » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 2:31 PM UTC

And only if you're using the internal microphone. I was trying to test this and couldn't reproduce it until I realized I was using headphones with a mic. Unplugged the headphones, activated Siri and the fan instantly turned off.

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#5

Post by kstenerud » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 2:31 PM UTC

They have to. Any time my MBP is working really hard, say, compiling, or talking on skype, or watching a video, or loading a web page, or browsing the filesystem, the fan ramps up like a turbine. It gets so bad that the microphone can't accurately pick up my voice.

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#6

Post by jxy » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 2:32 PM UTC

Does it stop the CPU hungry process too?

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#7

Post by vorotato » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

ianbertolacci wrote: post #2

Is there a timeout?

and thus an exploit was born.

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#8

Post by stuaxo » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

They probably thought of it because they were getting unexpectedly bad results using the internal microphone.

I guess it ramps the priority of everything else down as well.

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#9

Post by carlosfvp » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

jxy wrote: post #6

Does it stop the CPU hungry process too?

Good point, otherwise the hardware might damage with constant usage of Siri, or is this the actual plan of Apple?

Re: Tell HN: MacOS turns off the fans when Siri is listening

#10

Post by mnovaes » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

Hopefully not for long enough to fry your circuitry. :)