Headphone audio levels notification warning

This feature is the stupidest thing any phone manufacturer as ever done. I ride motorbikes, my helmet has built in speakers and I wear ear plugs. I take phone calls and play music and get directions from my sat nav while I am out riding but now the volume goes down to be replaced by an annoying beeping . This means I cannot hear any calls when riding or any music or any directions plus I have to find somewhere safe to stop to take off my gloves and turn everything off on my iPhone. This is the most dangerous feature any phone manufacturer as ever put on a phone and it now means I have to change phones because Apple think they know better than me when it comes to the volume I require.

They really haven’t thought this through and I can’t see any of my motorcycling touring buddies keeping their iPhones.

This feature is frustrating plus it cannot be turned off!

“These notifications cannot be turned off due to regulations and safety standards”

“Exposure limits are based on the safe listening guidelines set by the WORLD HEALTH ORGANiZATION”

WHATS NEXT? THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SAYS ITS A HEALTH RISK TO USE YOUR PHONE MORE THAN 5 HOURS. SO NOW AFTER 5 HOURS OF USAGE YOUR PHONE TURNS OFF???????????????

I’ve never posted before and owned iPhones for 10+ years but this is driving me mad. It’s absolutely no regard for anybody using an auxiliary device to listen to music on which actually controls the volume. Not that the volume that I listen to music at has ANYTHING to do with anyone else including apple. Presume this is a bug?

This is a big problem for me as I’m a fitness instructor and Bluetooth into stereos where I can control volume. It’s limiting my volume around every 15 minutes and completely ruining my classes. It cannot be switched off. I’m going to have to get rid of the phone

Screenshot included... People who use larger Bluetooth speakers at maximum volume are one of the groups that this issue impacts. I will note that I live in Missouri, USA, and despite the toggle for "Reduce Loud Sounds" being available and having two settings, neither setting eliminates this "special version" of a notification. The notification has an action associated with it that cuts the volume in half. It cuts down the volume on speakers after a period of time, and then it repeats periodically. I use the speaker during outside volleyball games and it is very disruptive given the $2000 investment in the phone and speaker. Unfortunately, I bet this affects way more users than just the ones who know enough to complain. My speaker is a Braven BRV-XXL/2 and my iPhone 12 correctly identifies the model number under the "reduce loud sounds" "feature." It lists this item under "headphones" which clearly means that iOS categorizes this bluetooth device (with 4 embedded speakers and 1 subwoofer) as a pair of headphones. The iPhone 12 knows the model number of the device, so it could easily map that to something other than headphones, but it incorrectly identifies it as headphones (see attached photo). Apple, could you please correct this issue so that your product provides this most basic functionality as expected?

I have no option to turn it off due to my ‘region’. What a stupid function - turns off my speaker not just headphones. Very very annoying - so choice is buy another ovine phone (been with apple since iPhone 2) or jailbreak. Think Android just got a new customer.

Good morning, xsull,

We understand that you need to stop your device from automatically warning you about the volume and adjusting your audio levels.

To change this setting, go to Settings > Sound & Haptics. Select Reduce Loud Sounds and then turn that feature off. This should prevent both the warning and the automatic adjustment. This article has more info:

Adjust the volume on iPhone - Apple Support

We hope you have a great rest of your day!

Apple are not here. The user community have given advice how to stop it happening for non-Apple BT headphones and speakers.

If you bought Apple headphones then make your request here

Feedback to Apple

Feature request/Bug report to Apple

Product Feedback - Apple

So I don't know if it's been mentioned before, but it seems somewhere in one of the iOS releases (I'm on 14.4 as I post this), the feature was added to categorize a Bluetooth device as a Car Stereo, Headphone, Hearing Aid, Speaker, or Other appears to have fixed this auto-dimming "feature". Please select your device type with caution is all I will further add.

So ever since I updated to 14.4 I am able to turn it off again also I recently had my phone unlocked as well so I don’t know if it has to do with that but the feature is off on my phone it was on and after I updated it turned it off

I too was having this hideous issue with the sound dropping out, in order to protect my hearing. As a fitness group exercise instructor, it was driving me and my participantes bonkers, as I wasn’t using headphones, I was using a Bluetooth speaker....Anyway here in the UK after the IOS 14 software update, an option in the settings appeared, asking me to tick the box... are you using, headphones, speakers or you in car stereo. And now my volume no longer drops out when I tick the speaker box. Thanks for sorting it Apple.

Hi,

This was happening with my Bluetooth car stereo and would turn down while I was driving and the notification would cover my google maps and not go away, which was very irritating. My phone assumed the Bluetooth device was headphones. If your headphones/device is Bluetooth you can go into your Bluetooth settings click on the ‘i’ next to your headphones and change the type to stereo or speaker and it should stop notifying you and turning down the music.

If your headphones aren’t Bluetooth you can also just stop it from turning down the music but it will still notify you that it’s too loud by going to ‘sounds and haptics’ in settings, then ‘headphone safety’ and turn off ‘reduce loud sounds’

hope this helps!

Alright here’s what I did so far so good! This was irritating the Crap out of me!

Go to Settings and click on Health, put it at bottoms of screenshot to make it easier to find then .....then click on Notifications and.....then turn them off! Working for me so far! Hope it helps y’all 🤘🏼

this is irritating me too. It’s constantly happening but doesn’t differentiate between my Bluetooth speaker, my shower speaker, and my actual headphones. And my

headphones at the moment are crap primark ones that even at full volume isn’t that loud, but my old ones were fine at half volume so I don’t think it takes into account what you’re using or if you’re even using actual headphones!