My Story, Developer coaxes Siri to control his thermostat by voice

Talking to Apple's Siri to control items beyond your
iPhone is now a big step closer.

A developer known only as Pete, or plamoni via his Twitter tag, has created a special proxy server through which he can issue voice commands to Siri to perform tasks outside of just controlling the iPhone.

Tapping into a hack set up last week by developer Applidium, which lets people add more functionality to Siri, Pete managed to create a plugin to control a Wi-Fi thermostat by voice. In the video demo seen below, he was able to not only ask Siri to report the room temperature but to actually change it.

The steps required to convince Siri to change the temp and perform other actions demand a fair knowledge of security certificates and OpenSSL, according to Pete. So it's not likely something the average person could do. But he held out the possibility of creating some automated scripts to help people try to duplicate his achievement.

Applidium's initial hack potentially opens the door for Siri to work on devices other than the
iPhone 4S, but Pete's bit of proxy trickery doesn't by itself achieve that goal. He did say that his process could help in that regard but cautioned people about the risks involved without making sure the proper authentication is in place.

Since Siri made its debut more than a month ago, developers and hackers have been striving to expand its use beyond the iPhone 4S. And the hacks developed by Applidium and others show that Siri is quite capable of moving beyond her original programming.

But some of this progress could be short-lived. Apple is not the type of company to sit idly by and let other people fiddle around with its products and technologies. As Pete said, "Apple could do things to block this kind of behavior if they want." So it'll be interesting to see if and how Apple attempts to turn off the tap on these sort of developments moving forward.