Set Location Based Reminders with Siri

Siri is getting more and more useful, and one of the better uses for Siri are location based reminders. With location reminders, you can have Siri remind you to do things like make copies when you get to work, feed the cat when you get home, and just about any other task that would be helpful to be reminded of upon arrival or departure. This tends to work best with iPhone, but it works with iPad too as long as Siri is enabled.

For Siri to adequately serve you location based reminders, you will need to have locations defined for yourself for places like Home, Work, School, etc, and addresses set for contacts. Don’t worry, if Siri doesn’t know the address for a contact or common place, you will be asked to provide one. You will also need to have Location Services turned ON for Reminders and Siri. This can be done through Settings > Privacy > Location Services.

Create Location-Based Reminders with Siri
To set a new location dependent reminder, summon Siri as usual then use verbiage like the following:

Remind me to ___ when I get home
Remind me to ___ when I leave home
Remind me when I get to school to ___
Remind me to ___ when I leave work
Remind me to ___ when I get to work
Remind me to ___ when I get to ___ house
Remind me to ___ when I leave here
Example Reminders Dependent on Locations
Here are a few practical examples of how such phrases could work:

Remind me to overfeed the dog when I get home
Remind me to get gas when I leave
Remind me to say happy birthday when I get to Moms house
Remind me to pick up milk when I leave work
Remind me to turn in my assignment when I get to school
For the last example, you do not need to specify a location because Siri will assume you mean leaving your current location as determined by GPS or internet. The reminder will therefore appear whenever you depart the current location, regardless of where or what it is.

As mentioned before, if Siri does not know the address for a location you request or a contact you mention, you will be asked to provide one by adjusting that contacts details.

Though Siri is still in beta, Siri is undoubtedly becoming more and more useful, and if you aren’t using it yet to perform common tasks you should start doing so now, intelligent assistants will only be getting better.

Oh and finally, if you don’t have Siri, remember that Mac users can also set Location Reminders with OS X 10.8 and later, though they are dependent on internet access in order to know where you are. If you do have a Mac and an iOS device with Siri though, any created reminder will sync across everything as long as the same iCloud account is used on each device.