You can control the AirPods with the pressure sensor, but if you don’t have your hands free or it’s simply not convenient to have your hands on the AirPods (for example while exercising), you can also do a lot with Siri. You can control your music, answer phone calls and send messages. You can even have all notifications from your iPhone read out to you by Siri, via your AirPods. But you don’t always feel like answering Siri’s questions with your voice. Or it’s simply not desirable to talk to Siri on your AirPods. For those cases, the new head gestures for the AirPods Pro come in handy. From iOS 18, you can give commands to Siri by nodding or shaking your head.
Answer Siri on your AirPods with head gestures: what you need
In order to even use this feature, you have to meet a few requirements. Here’s what you’ll need to use head gestures to control Siri on your AirPods:
- AirPods Pro 2nd generation (Lightning or USB-C variant)
- iOS 18, iPadOS 18, or macOS Sequoia or later
- AirPods update September 2024 or later
- Announce caller with Siri and/or read notifications with Siri must be enabled
The feature only works with the latest second-generation AirPods Pro. It doesn’t matter whether you have the version with a Lightning case or a USB-C charging case. In addition, the AirPods must be equipped with the latest update that will be available to everyone from September 2024 and the connected iPhone, iPad or Mac must be equipped with iOS 18, iPadOS 18 or macOS Sequoia or later.
Here’s how AirPods head gestures work with Siri and notifications
The head gesture feature with your AirPods lets you respond to Siri requests without using your voice. For example, you can use it to answer or decline an incoming phone call. Or you can directly answer or dismiss a notification.
Let’s say you’re out for a run with your AirPods Pro and someone calls you. Siri announces the caller’s name and asks if you want to answer or dismiss the call. Touching your AirPods while running can be annoying (and can cause them to fall out of your ears), and you don’t want to talk while running either. You can simply shake your head to let Siri know that you don’t want to answer the call right now.
This way, you can answer or reject both incoming phone calls and incoming notifications. You can read more about this in our tip on having Siri read out notifications. The feature can register two types of head movements with the AirPods: nodding yes (head up and down) or shaking no (head from left to right).
To use the feature, you first need to set it up:
- Make sure your AirPods Pro are connected to your iPhone, iPad, or Mac (with the necessary software updates).
- Go to Settings and open the AirPods settings.
- Scroll down until you reach the Head Gestures option.
- Enable the function.
- You can choose which gesture (up and down or left and right) corresponds to which action:
- Accept (calls) and respond (notifications)
- Reject (calls) and reject (notifications)
- At the bottom you can try the head movements, to test how far you have to move your head.
More about iOS 18
iOS 18 is the major new iPhone update of 2024. iOS 18 brings a ton of new features, including a revamped Home screen, a redesigned Control Center, and tons of innovations in standard apps like Messages, Photos, and Mail. There’s also a new Passwords app. Apple Intelligence, the new system for smart features, is also a big part of iOS 18. The compatible devices for iOS 18 are iPhone XS and later. The release date of iOS 18 is scheduled for this fall. Until then, the beta of iOS 18 is available. Also read our article with interesting iOS 18 details and discoveries for more secret features or our extensive iOS 18 preview with experiences.
