How to answer or reject calls with your voice in iOS 14.5

How to answer or reject calls with your voice in iOS 14.5

iOS 14.5 lets you answer or reject incoming calls with your voice on iPhone — without the need to say “Hey Siri.” In this tutorial, we’ll cover which headphones are compatible and how to get the feature set up.

There might be times when you’re listening to music with your AirPods in and you don’t want to touch your iPhone. Perhaps you’re cleaning the car or doing a spot of gardening and your hands are wet and dirty.

Apple solved this problem in iOS 14.5 by giving us the ability to answer calls using only our voice. The feature also works for FaceTime calls on iPad, and for some third-party apps with voice call support.

What you need

To take advantage of this feature, you’ll need an iPhone running iOS 14.5 or later or an iPad running iPadOS 14.5 or later. You will also need a set of the following wireless headphones:

• AirPods (second-generation)
• AirPods Pro
• AirPods Max
• Powerbeats
• Powerbeats Pro
• Beats Solo Pro

How to set up Siri call answering

If your iPhone and iPad are updated, and you have the right headphones, you can follow the step-by-step guides below to enable Siri’s new call answering feature.

On iPhone:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap Siri & Search.
3. Tap Announce Calls.
4. Choose whether you want Siri to announce calls always, when using headphones and in the car, or when using headphones only.

On iPad:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap FaceTime.
3. Tap Announce Calls.
4. Choose whether you want calls to be announced always, when using headphones and in the car, or when using headphones only.

Now, when you receive an incoming call, Siri will tell you — along with the name of the person calling. You can then respond with “answer” to accept or “decline” to reject the call. There’s no need to say “Hey Siri.”