Dictate it — without opening the app

“Hey Siri, remind me to buy milk tomorrow” — and the task lands in Hobba’s Inbox, date included. From your wrist, in the car, on a HomePod. Here’s how to set it up.

Why the route goes through Apple Reminders

Siri dictates most reliably into Apple’s own Reminders app — whole sentences, nothing chopped up, from any device. Hobba takes advantage of that: it watches a Reminders list of your choice, collects everything from it into the Inbox, and tidies the list up on the other side. Dates in the sentence (“tomorrow”, “at 8”, “every Tuesday”) are parsed just as if you had typed them in the app.

Since version 1.1 this also happens in the background — you no longer have to open Hobba for dictation to arrive.

Setup, three steps

1. Create a dedicated list. In Apple Reminders, make a new list — “Hobba”, say. Your other reminders stay untouched.
2. Make it the default list. iOS Settings → Apps → Reminders → “Default List” → pick the new list. From now on Siri dictates there unless you name another list.
3. Let Hobba listen. Hobba → Settings → Apple Reminders → enable “Inbox from Reminders” and pick the same list. iOS asks for access once when you switch it on.

Using it

From then on, the plain Siri sentence is enough: “Remind me to hang up the laundry at 6pm.” Next time you look at Hobba, the task is in the Inbox — reminder at 6pm included. Whatever Hobba takes over, it deletes from the Reminders list; the list stays empty and serves purely as a letterbox.

Good to know

• Other Reminders lists stay untouched — Hobba only reads the one you picked.
• There’s also a direct route: the “Add task to Hobba” shortcut creates instantly, and “Open Hobba to capture” launches the app with the input field ready.
• An existing Reminders list can also be imported once under Settings → Apple Reminders — that’s a different thing from the inbox: copy once instead of watch permanently.