A few notes after using the AirPods for a couple weeks.
I was wrong about not seeing the AirPod levels on the iPhone's battery widget. I just needed to tap the 'show more' button on the widget. Otherwise it only shows the first two items; iPhone and AppleWatch.
Siri control on the AirPods is flakier than I would like. Sometimes it works beautifly, and then sometimes I give up in frustration and pull out the phone or use the watch. I think there are three separate issues combining to make things unpredictable.
1) The tap responce time is laggy, and sometimes doesn't register at all, or only partially. I suspect that this part of the AirPods is pure bluetooth, which has always been flaky and unpredictable.
2) I tend to give my first commands as I'm walking away from the house. Siri needs internet to interpret commands, and the phone is often hung up between the wi-fi network and LTE. Swithching on LTE assist for wi-fi has helped some, not not completely.
3) Sometimes, even though the AirPods are active, Sir responds on the iPhone instead of in the AirPods. This has got to be some kind of bug.
That said, I've discovered a few interesting things.
You aren't limited to telling Siri to turn the volume up or down. You can also say things like; "set the volume to 50%", "turn the volume up 5%, or even "increase the volume by one dB (decible). Moslty this means it's possible to get the volume exactly where you want (providing Siri is in a cooperative mood).
Actually, the longer commands tend to work better than "volume up/ down"; probably because you are giving Siri more context to catch obviouls mistakes. Along the same vein, "Play the next song" works more often than "Next"
I suppose wording things a bit longer would help with possible missunderstandings as well.
The other day, as I was about to leave my favorite coffee stop, I tapped my earphones and told Siri to "play". The coffee server looked at me a bit funny and said "right, or "night" or something. Since the second beep hadn't happend Siri was still listening, and shorlty after I was listing to some music called "Night". I'm not sure if it was an artist or album.