Apple volume turned down when using headphones

Go to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Reduce Loud Sounds

Is it marked Allow? If it is mark Don't Allow

Then go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Headphone Safety > Turn off Reduce Loud Sounds if turned on

Hey Peter,

I came across your question because I’ve been having the same issue since having to restore my iPhone over the weekend. So annoying, and it annoys me to see Apple didn’t help you.

Well, I was able to figure out how to turn them off finally.

Settings>Accessibility>Audio/Visual>Headphone Notifications

Hope this helps man

It is the health app that does it. I tried deleting the app for permanent fix but it does not work but i can offer you this as at least a bit of help. It’s still more than apple did for me. Delete the data in health app regarding headphones and that will reset the counter giving you another “week” of loud music which in translation means some time without the volume going down depending on how loud and how long you listen to music. The permanent solution would be if they allowed us to tamper with source code enabling the complete elimination of health app. Sorry that’s the best i got

Guessing you haven't seen this --> Headphone notifications on your iPhone, iPod touch, or Apple Watch - Apple Support

Pay attention to the section on how to mark devices as headphones or speakers.

Of course this requires you update to iOS 14.4, which I'm also guessing you haven't done.

Guess you couldn't be bothered to read past the first post to see Apple released iOS 14.4, which addresses this?

Headphone notifications on your iPhone, iPod touch, or Apple Watch - Apple Support

1. Go to Settings
2. Click Sounds & Haptics
3. Click Headphone Safety
4. Toggle Reduce Loud Sounds to turn off

Hopefully this should work to solve this problem.

So I went into the health app, selected browse at the bottom, and selected hearing. I’ve deleted all the data it’s collected. If it does what I think it will. It should be good for at least 7 days until it comes up with an average again. If this works, we may have to clear the data weekly, but I’ll take that over my headphones being turned down. I work in a loud factory and listen to podcasts. I turn them all the way up but there’s no way its at the level this algorithm is claiming.

Go into settings, tap the i next to your Bluetooth devices, and classify them as other than a headphone.

So you haven't updated to iOS 14.4, then gone into Settings > Bluetooth > tap the little circle with an i in it and identifying the device you're listening through so volume isn't reduced?

Maybe do that instead of "hating Apple."

Okay so I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned a solution or if you found one that works for when you have headphones on or an aux cord hooked up to the phone. It seems on my phone that the phone only turns down my music when it is hooked to head phones and not Bluetooth. Now how I was able to fix this was by going to my settings. There I found sounds and haptics, after that I clicked on headphone safety. There I was able to find the button that said lighting adapters, I clicked on this and there you have the option to forget all adapters. Click this. After you do this when you plug in headphones or an aux it should give you 2 options. One says headphones and the other says “ other device” or something along that line. Select the “ other device” and it should work now without turning your music down any!

have you updated to ios 14.4? and once that has been done have you go into bluetooth settings and told what speaker it is connected to and not a headphone?

as mine now works.

have you updated to most recent ios 14.4 and then gone into bletooth settings and told it, it is not headphones it is connecting too?

I just got a new iPhone 12 and had the same thing happen to. I mostly listen to audio books and listen at a comfortable level. Suddenly the sound gets turned way down and a notification appears telling me that I’m not listening at a safe (by their standards) measure! When I opened the link for more info I received a grammatically poor explanation that this was being done for my safety. I’m extremely upset and feel a complete invasion of my privacy. When I looked at my settings and went to the health app I noticed many things being monitored. If I want to monitor my health habits I should have the choice to do this and not have it foisted on me by Apple. I wear a Fitbit for those purposes by choice.

I called Apple and was told that there is no way to remove this feature and that it was added for the user’s protection! They make me feel that I’m too incompetent to decide how to monitor my own health habits

Jack Flitton wrote:

If the issue isn’t worked out in a few months I shall unsubscribe from Apple Music, sell my AirPods Pro’s and purchase a DAP from Fiio, buy some decent IEMs and subscribe to either Tidal or Spotify. Utterly ridiculous.

iOS 14.4 was just released and addresses this.

> Guess you couldn't be bothered to read past the first post to see Apple released iOS 14.4, which addresses this?

Except 14.4 does not address this issue. The issue is that Apple assumes that all people use a specific kind of headphone, so the volume set in the device would be an indication of the volume that a customer hears. But that's nonsense: I'm using a regular audio cable both in my car and when listening to music with the iPhone via a speaker at home. The volume that I actually hear depends only what I set up on those devices and has (almost) nothing to do with what the iPhone things (except the volume drops significantly when Apple messes with its own volume).

Due to this wrong assumption, "Due to regulations and safety standards, headphone notifications can't be turned off in certain countries or regions" still applies. But the regulation doesn't say what Apple does: It only says that the volume must be limited to 85 dB. Apple could simply be honest and say the truth: The iPhone has no idea what volume I am exposed to.

Here's the text of that regulation: https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_layman/en/hearing-loss-personal-music-player-mp3/l-3/3-hearing-protection-limits.htm

Even when connecting to the speaker via Bluetooth, that setting that they have apparently introduced in 14.4 does not exist. When I tap the (i), there simply is no device type. And I am using iOS 14.4. But this is probably one of the region where that applies.