How can I switch off Siri on a Apple Watch?

Ever had a conversation interrupted by Siri on your Apple Watch butting in? I’m not accusing Apple of deliberately snooping on conversations, but I’ve certainly suffered from my Apple Watch rudely interrupting my conversations. What triggered Siri to do this? I thought I’d switched off Siri on my Apple Watch.

In fact, there are four ways that you can conjure Siri on your Apple Watch, two of which can be easily triggered accidentally. We’ll explore each and explain how to switch off Siri on an Apple Watch.

Siri as a watch face complication

You can add Siri to your watch face as a complication. If you click on the Siri icon at any point it will start listening. It’s not easily triggered by mistake and is probably the best way to make use of Siri on your watch without having it accidentally invoked.

Saying “Hey, Siri”

Say “Hey, Siri” and its icon will appear, listening to your conversation. If you think that’s pretty foolproof, I can guarantee it’s not. One of my cats is named Timmy, and Siri regularly mishears “Hey, Timmy”.

Nonetheless, I keep this feature switched on, as it’s a useful hands-free means of reaching Siri. And, other than calling the cat, it doesn’t often trigger when I don’t want it to.

Pressing the Digital Crown

Holding down the Digital Crown on the side will also act as a trigger for Siri to wake up. Unfortunately, I often find that when angling my wrist upwards, it presses on the Crown and triggers Siri. If you’re doing a bit of DIY and find yourself pressing down on something, it will quickly become an annoyance.

For a while, I switched the Watch so that the Crown was on the other side but then realised I simply didn’t need this option, so turned it off and returned the Crown to the side it should be. See instructions below for how to turn the Crown off.

Raising your wrist

When you raise your wrist, causing the screen to come on, Siri will also start listening. You don’t need to say “Hey, Siri” either – it’s listening to whatever you say. So, if you raise your wrist and say “what’s the weather”, Siri will tell you.

Personally, I want a digital assistant to only be listening when I ask it to, so this certainly wasn’t something I wanted.

How to switch off Siri on an Apple Watch

To turn off the Siri complication:

1. Launch the Watch app on your iPhone
2. On the My Watch tab, click on the face in question that you want to change
3. This will show the edit screen for the watch face
4. Scroll down to the list of complications and identify the Siri one
5. Click on this and change it to another option from the list

To turn off any of the other options:

1. Launch the Settings app on your Apple Watch
2. Scroll down and tap on the Siri menu option
3. You should be presented with a screen similar to this:

4. Click the toggle against any of them to turn them on/off

As you can see in the above screenshot I make use of “Hey, Siri” only – all the others are now turned off. And that works just great. Apart from when I speak to the cat…