Tailwind is compatible with Apple HomeKit - meaning that you can set up Tailwind in the Apple Home app and use Siri to open and close your garage door. You can also use Siri Shortcuts, but we recommend just setting up Apple Home as Siri works much better that way - no custom phrase required.
When you set up your Tailwind controller our system will send you a HomeKit welcome email with your HomeKit setup code as well as instructions for doing a HomeKit reset if needed.
The HomeKit setup code can also be found in the Tailwind app by tapping the "Devices" tab at the bottom of the screen and then tapping on your device to get to the device settings screen. That screen will show the HomeKit setup code for that device.
If you want to use a Shortcut:
Note that you can record any phrase you want for each shortcut, and you need to create a separate shortcut (and phrase) for open and close commands. In addition please be aware that iOS is going to route your verbal command to Apple Home (not Shortcuts) if it detects anything resembling "open", "close", "unlock", "lock" because it thinks you're trying to control a smart home device.
So if you want garage door 2 to open using a Shortcut it's not going to work if you name the shortcut "Open garage door 2". That command will get routed to Apple Home, not Shortcuts. However, if you named it something like "Hey this Tailwind thing is pretty cool", you can do that. The phrase is completely customizable for each door and each command (open or close). This is especially useful for the open commands because it's inherently more secure. Nobody can steal your phone and say "Hey Siri open garage door".
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All good Scott, its got a bunch of photos and useful information from me. Clearly Spam.
An update on my usage. I added some logic to the set Flag to ensure I was in a particular car, you should see it in the demo shortcut I posted. It basically checks which car I'm in and doesn't do anything if I am in a car that doesn't go into a garage.
I had some notifications in the shortcut, to tell me when that was working and because I don't drive my truck very often, it worked when I tested it, but I didn't see any notifications other times and assumed that all was well.
Two days ago, I started getting notifications sitting down in the house that I wasn't in the car to open the door, like I had 'left' the house in the truck. As it turns out in the Focus setting (for Personal) it had built a smart schedule based on my movements, and was being 'clever' during the day and 'setting' the focus (that was already on) to off and then later turning it back on again. Thankfully the logic of not being connected to the garaged car meant it didn't open the door (yay as designed) but I simply disabled the setting for use a smart schedule (must be there by default) and the problem has gone away.
Else I've been very smug as I pull into my street to see my garage door slowly rising without any action from me, and confident knowing that the door is always shut on my departure.
Siri always says the garage door is open regardless of its actual status. I tried deleting and readding the shortcut and it’s still doing the same.
Did you add Tailwind into your Apple Home app? Generally once you do that a lot of things behave better. The fact that your door closing shortcut works proves that everything on our side of the fence is working as it should. I think if you add Tailwind to Apple Home it should work. Also, try changing the door name if you have used something like "Door 1" for example. It seems that Siri and shortcuts have trouble with numbers - thinking you said "Door One" instead of "Door 1".
Other than that the only thing I can suggest is a phone restart and some patience while you wait for Apple's software to sort itself out and start working after a bit. Google's Android platform does the same thing. The open doesn't work at first, and then suddenly just starts working. We've done troubleshooting on it multiple times and every time we discover that they just suddenly, without changing anything, start sending the commands.
Thanks for clarifying the opening statement. It says the same thing whether opening or closing... Orherwise shortcuts works great for now.
Sorry but I am unclear what video you’re referring to. Our article is at this link https://gotailwind.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360024524652-Using-Siri-with-Tailwind
There is no video reference, but there is a reference to an Apple support document. About halfway down that document from Apple it shows how to set it up for a 3rd party app.
And yes, you can also do it using the Short Cuts app as well :)
I just started using Siri to open and close my garage with my new Tailwind device. Today I upgraded my iPhone to iOS 13 now Siri says "Shortcuts disabled while in the car". This really makes me upset. Any work arounds?
Douglas,
We are looking into this currently. It appears that Apple has disabled all Siri Shortcuts while driving. I'm hoping our iOS team can come up with a workaround shortly.
Scott
I have 2 cars exactly the same (2018 Honda Civic Ex with Carplay) and 2 iPhone 7 plus. Yes, I believe Apple messed me up with iOS 13. I spent 2 hours on with support trying everything under the sun to make it work with no luck. They had me create shortcuts to Apple Apps with the same result. Seems to me Siri Shortcuts is the perfect use case for Carplay. If I would have know, I wouldn't have upgraded. Works fine until you plug in Carplay.
Douglas,
Agreed. Reddit is pretty lit up over this. There are a lot of upset iPhone users. Why they would suddenly disable Sir Shortcuts completely - even for their own apps - is odd. Hopefully it is just a bug and not some decision they made to take away functionality from their users.
Apple posted 13.1. The upgrade seems to have fixed the Siri shortcuts issue! YEAH!
Well that's good news!
Siri won’t activate any commands. When I ask to open door she says: “Tailwind says: Sorry I am unable to open garage door 1”
Yes, installed the software got everything working but the Siri integration failed. Logged out and the back into the app as Dan suggested and it worked.
Thanks for the detailed instructions to set up Siri with Tailwind. It works seamlessly. I haven’t been able to figure out how to change Siri’s announcement of Closing from “Ok, opening. Door command sent successfully.” to announcing closed.
Apple doesn't support that Mark. The only announcement the Siri Shortcut can make is when the command is successfully sent. There is no way the shortcut can announce when the door closes.
Also, we have filed a bug report with Apple because Siri has suddenly started adding "Ok opening" to the beginning of the response - even when the shortcut is to close the door. This is something Apple has added.
Hi Scott! I have been trying to set-up Tailwind (and other apps) with Apple or Siri shortcuts. When I go to create a shortcut and look for Tailwind app, it is not found when searching for it. Any ideas how to fix this issue?
I've never heard of that before. You should be able to simply do the following:
Open the Shortcuts app on your iPhone
Tap "+" in the top right corner
Tap "Add Action"
At the top of the screen in the search bar type "Tailwind"
It will come up with a list of all the available actions (open / close) for each door you have
Siri shortcuts works great with Tailwind IQ3.
There's one thing that confuses me though.
When I close garage door, Siri repeats "door's closing" somehow.
Tailwind notification afterward is correct.
It's not a functional issue but bugs me.
The open command no longer appears to work in the shortcuts app on IOS 16.1.1. Have tested on 2 iPhones. No change to shortcuts but the command never opens the door. Close shortcut works fine.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. I'll report it to Apple as well. Hopefully in future...
[quote]Everything else is added by Apple. They also have a bug that no matter whether you're opening the door or closing it, Siri will say "ok opening". Drives us crazy because we have reported this and just heard crickets.[unquote]
Does the Tailwind App need to be open to use Siri?
No it does not.
Hello Scott, I was playing around with Siri Shortcuts and created one for Door Status. The display will say 'that's done' but no announcements as to the status for each door. I had expected Garage Door-1 Open; Garage Door-2 Closed verbally (or at least on screen).
There should be a verbal confirmation that says "Garage Door X is open / closed". Could have been a first run hiccup? Also, there's an iOS bug that keeps adding "Ok opening" to every Siri response, so it will actually say "Ok opening. Garage Door X is open / closed". We've reported this to Apple many times.
I just checked it on my iPhone as a sanity check and it works as expected. It give verbal feedback that the door was closed.
I just used Siri to open/close my doors and it worked via verbal and key presses. However when I try the ‘Check Garage Door Status’ siri will say ok but there aren’t ant visual audio cues as to the actual status. I am using 2.25(166) and restarted tailwind hdwe twice
Very strange. I just deleted my shortcut and added it back and again it worked no problem. Can you please send a bug report though the Tailwind app shortly after you try using Siri? It might contain a clue. I'm not sure. We can only record what's happening within our app, so if the failure is on the Siri side we can't do anything about it.
Just sent.....
And a separate email showing shortcut steps
Never mind. The latest update adds the show status option.
I deleted all of the tailwind shortcuts and recreated the openin/closing of my two doors. I then createda check status and the shortcut will run but there aren’t any visual or audio notifications.
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