iPhone settings for the hearing impaired

The iPhone has several accessibility options for interacting, learning, seeing, and hearing. These options improve ease of use for people with disabilities. You can activate most options via the Settings menu. In this article we explain possibilities for the hearing impaired based on an iPhone with iOS 13 or higher. If you have an older operating system, it will work similarly in many cases.

Various hearing aid manufacturers have developed so-called ‘Made-for-iPhone hearing aids’. Connect these hearing aids to the phone via bluetooth. The sound from the iPhone, such as music and speech, then goes directly to the hearing aid.

On the Apple’s website you can read which hearing aids are suitable and how to connect such a hearing aid to the telephone.

If you have trouble hearing notification sounds on the iPhone, you can turn on the LED flash. The flash next to the camera will then go off for incoming calls and notifications.

• Tap on Institutions.
• Tap on Accessibility.
• Tap on Audiovisual.
• Tap the button behind ‘LED flash on notification’ so it turns green.

As soon as you get a notification, the flash will go off from now on.

Stereo recordings often have a separate sound track for left and right. People who are deaf or hard of hearing in one ear cannot hear parts of the sound recording properly. This is especially the case when using headphones. The iPhone offers the possibility to hear both sound channels in both ears. To do this, turn on ‘Mono sound’.

• Tap on Institutions.
• Tap on Accessibility.
• Tap on Audiovisual.
• The slider behind ‘Mono sound’ should be green. Isn’t this the case? Then tap the slider.
• Use the slider below to also adjust the audio balance between the left and right channels. Tap the circle and swipe left or right if desired.

Noise cancellation reduces ambient noise when you hold iPhone to your ear during phone calls. To make sure noise cancellation is on, do the following:

• Tap on Institutions.
• Tap on Accessibility.
• Tap on Audiovisual.
• The slider behind ‘Noise Reduction’ should be green. Isn’t this the case? Then tap the slider.

With movies and podcasts, subtitles and captions for speech and sounds can be shown:

• Tap on Institutions.
• Tap on Accessibility.
• Tap on Subtitles and Captions.
• Tap the slider behind ‘Captions sound + ODS’
• If necessary, adjust the style of the subtitles below. Tap on Style and tap the style you want. At the top you can see what the subtitles will look like.