Under iOS and iPadOS there is a very useful feature called sound recognition. In specific (emergency) situations, your iPhone or iPad can alert you with a notification. Moreover, the Apple Watch Series 12, Ultra 4 or newer are also equipped with this smart feature. This option was specially developed for hearing-impaired people, but it is actually useful for everyone.
For example, do you often listen to music with headphones or AirPods? Then sound recognition will certainly come in handy. Thanks to the accessibility feature, your iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch can recognize sounds such as a doorbell, smoke alarm, siren, crying baby, etc. and notify you with a notification. Handy!
Enable sound recognition
- Open Institutions on your iPhone or iPad
- Go to Accessibility
- Select the option ‘Sound and name recognition‘
- Tap ‘Sound recognition‘
- Enable the option
Once you enable the option you can choose the sounds to be recognized. You do this by clicking the option ‘Sounds‘ to tap. You can then determine which sounds should be recognized. This way you have the choice between alarms, animals, household and people.
On some iPhone models you can also add a sound yourself. This way you can add the specific sound of your doorbell or alarm.
Please note, if you want to use sound recognition, you can no longer use Hey Siri on some devices. You will then have to manually activate the voice assistant by pressing and holding the home or side button. Your iPhone will warn you if it is not suitable for Hey Siri in combination with sound recognition.
Recognize sounds with the Apple Watch
Anyone who owns an Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra or newer can also recognize sounds via the Apple Watch. Anyone who wants to do this must enable sound recognition on the paired iPhone via the steps above. Then also switch ‘Discover with Apple Watch‘ via Settings ▸ Accessibility ▸ Sound and name recognition ▸ Sound detection.
The Apple Watch will then continuously analyze the ambient noise in the background and warn when a sound is detected.
Sound recognition in practice
Once you have activated the option, your iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch will listen to the ambient sounds. This takes place locally on your device and conversations are not monitored or stored. After all, your device only listens to tones and not to words. As soon as iOS, iPadOS or watchOS recognizes a sound, you will receive a notification. We tested the option for some time and the results are accurate.
Naturally, your device must be located near the source and the environment must not be too noisy. Do you have loud music playing? Then the device will not be able to hear the doorbell.
Unfortunately, sound recognition does require the necessary battery power, so the iPhone uses an average of 9% of the battery per day to use this function. This is also the case for the Apple Watch, although Apple claims that this function does not require extra battery life from your smartwatch.
Temporarily disable sound recognition
Of course, it can sometimes happen that you receive a false notification, for example when you watch a series in which an alarm or doorbell can be heard. Despite this being filtered, you may receive false notifications. What if you unexpectedly receive a lot of notifications while watching a movie? Then you can temporarily disable sound recognition.
Place your finger on the notification and wait a few moments to open the pop-up menu. Then choose a snooze time, for example 30 minutes or 2 hours. Your iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch will then temporarily stop listening and automatically resume after your chosen period.
Finally, you can enable or disable the sound recognition function via the Control Panel via the dedicated switch.
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