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AirPods Notifications are EXTREMELY LOUD, while other sounds are not

Having the same problem that many have already reported with extremely loud Airpods (2nd Gen) notifications, while the volume for phone calls, music, and other sounds are fine. In Settings, there appears to be no way to differentiate sound levels between devices like headphones, airpods, the built-in speaker, etc. If I lower the volume slider under 'Sounds and Haptics' to a level that is comfortable when wearing the airpods, then it gets WAY TOO LOW for me to hear other phone alerts when I'm not wearing them. I am on-call for my employer frequently and need to be able to hear my phone ringer or a text come in when in noisy environments. Why can't IOS allow for a separate volume level for each sound 'device' (Airpods, built-in speaker, and speakerphone)? I have tried all of the ideas in the community threads here and they aren't addressing the real problem. I can't turn my phone ringer volume down so low to make the airpods comfortable to listen to , but still hear my phone ring when I need to. Apple designers, PLEASE prioritize this feature into an upcoming IOS release. Thank you.

Posted on Aug 14, 2020 11:56 AM

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Posted on Oct 21, 2020 5:54 PM

Yes, please fix this! I literally threw my AirPod across the room when I got a shrill text alert while listening to peaceful music. Not cool.

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6 replies

Sep 9, 2020 4:52 AM in response to woodmtw

I fully agree and sent in yet another request to Apple for this to be fixed. You are correct it is a design flaw and what is really disappointing is that they chose to carry this design flaw into the Airpod Pro even with so much user feedback on how bad that design is. Apple stands for excellence in thinking through the user experience and this is a clear example of total failure on that score. It’s not okay that we have to adjust the phone ring volume up and down each and every time we insert an Airpod into our ear. There isn’t even an Automation/Shortcut option for users to workaround this flaw until they finally decide to fix it.


Apple, your user community has explained this problem to you for several years now. PLEASE fix it ASAP.

Sep 9, 2020 4:54 AM in response to woodmtw

By the way, you can ignore the helpful posts asking you to reset the AirPods and reset the phone... nothing changes with reset because this is a fundamental flaw in the software design of the AirPods and the airpod pros. There is a solution, but its an insane use case.. every time you insert the headphone, go to settings and turn down the ringer volume. That will fix the loud alerts but it also means that when you take out the AirPods, you will likely miss phone calls and alerts because the volume of the phone has been turned down in settings. It makes no sense at all.

Oct 25, 2020 11:13 AM in response to woodmtw

This problem does not just apply to AirPods or other Apple headphone products. I use a set of Sony Bluetooth headphones. The phone volume does not adjust when I connect them and my ears get blasted by extreme volume. It’s not the same as when iPhones intuitively changed to a lower volume when we used plug in headphones with 3.5mm. For some reason, the iPhone doesn’t recognize when I connect the Bluetooth and doesn’t change the volume accordingly.


The other issue I have is the volume for notifications such as texts does not come from the phone speakers when Bluetooth headphones are connected. So if I set my headphones down I never know a text is coming through because the alert only goes to the headphones.


And the notification volume is too loud even though my media volume is adjusted lower and my ringer volume is adjusted lower.


Apple has an issue with volume control whether they like to admit it or not. And even if they don’t admit it, I would really like to see more user control over volume in the near future.

Aug 14, 2020 11:57 AM in response to woodmtw

...by the way, I am being killed by Microsoft Teams notification sounds when wearing the AirPods. I haven't contacted Microsoft to ask if they can build in a way to control volume just for that application, like I can do on my Windows 10 PC, but having the ability to set sound levels 'by application' in IOS would be even more useful!

AirPods Notifications are EXTREMELY LOUD, while other sounds are not

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