How to turn off Headphone Safety on iPhone

Hi bondo86, 

Please take a look at this article: Headphone notifications on your iPhone, iPod touch, or Apple Watch 

If you scroll down to the section titled “Turn headphone notifications on or off”, there are a few steps that will walk you through turning off Headphone Safety notifications. 

If this option is not available for you, there is a message at the bottom of that section which says “Due to regulations and safety standards, headphone notifications can’t be turned off in certain countries or regions.”

Thank you!

I have spoken to apple support about this issue, they were unable to help. I have tried the suggestions on this forum as well and they have not worked.

What is particularly frustrating is that the alert is generated through the Health app. According to support, these alerts cannot be disabled and an alarm is heard when the notification is generated. What also is frustrating is that the Health app as well in its data shows that my headphone audio sound levels are good, below 80db, yet I still get the notifications, 42 times in one day.

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/ipod-touch/iph4f0fc4e9d/14.0/ios/14.0

I suggest everyone leave feedback at apple so they resolve this issue.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

Or just upgrade to iOS 14.4, which has been out for almost a month now, where you can tell the phone that the BT device is in fact a speaker.

Set up and listen to Bluetooth devices on iPhone - Apple Support

Solution - Apple made me totally furious with this "feature" but I think I have a fix. Software Version 14.3 (even in USA) no longer allows you to turn off headphone safety. Here is the workaround. The lightning to 3.5mm audio adapter has a unique code in it. When you plug it in for the first time iPhone asks if it is a headphone or other device. If you say headphone Apple will lower the output level slightly and monitor your usage and volume over time. If you exceed their limit they force the volume down (like a control freak nanny would do). So when you plug in the adapter choose other device. If you have already chosen headphone you can reset the adapters by going to Settings / Sound & Haptics / Headphone Safety and click Forget all Adapters. Now the next time you plug in the adapter with your headphones choose other device. 

Settings- accessibility- audio/visual- headphone notifications- *off*

Very very disappointed you didn't read any pf the latter part of this thread.

It was fixed in 14.4

See Classify a Bluetooth Device in https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211903

if you using bluetooth device as a headphone, go to the device edit settings and change from a headphone to a ‘other’ device type.

Goto settings, Bluetooth, find the device, click the “?” And change the device type to “car stereo”

Yes, if you go to general-sound&haptics-headphone safety then you will see “Reduce Loud Sounds” toggled to the off position. It doesn’t matter. The phone will still turn down your headphones when you trigger some data point (db and time). It’s a done deal. I frankly don’t know why this group is so active. There is no way to disable it. This is a published fact.

In certain regions this patronising function can not be turned of due to regulations and safety standards. What I do now when using GarageBand to record a jam session for instance, is change my region, temporarily.

If you have read here, updating to iOS 14.4 will allow you to select the type of Bluetooth device when you pair them. Setting it as a speaker will remove the reporting of the volume levels and will fix the issue you are having.

I hear what you're saying but it shouldn't matter what iOS version a new

phone shipped with. When Apple implements a change in iOS, they don't

implement the change selectively. Either they have changed how

Headphone Safety works for everyone in the US or they haven't.

But it does matter. Phones that SHIPPED with 14.2 (or later) or were factory reset after being upgraded to 14.2 (or later) permanently lose the ability to turn off Headphone Safety. It appears there is a flag that gets somewhere that tells iOS that the phone was upgraded from something prior 14.2. Apple probably did that to not hose existing users by removing functionality. Factory resetting the phone deletes that flag.

I know there are people who say they upgraded to 14.2 and never factory reset and still lost the ability to turn off Headphone Safety. It's possible they are lying. It's also possible Apple screwed up the check for the flag, or setting the flag on the upgrade, and their phones are now permanently unable to turn off Headphone Safety.

If you are on the latest iOS go to your Bluetooth settings and you will see your speaker.

if you select the blue circled i it takes you to another screen and you can set the speaker to a different device type other than headphones.

if it’s not there you may have to unpair the speaker and re-pair for it to appear.

If yall are using a blutooth headphones just change the type of blutooth device apple reads them as to something other than headphones. Going to Blutooth-> (Your Device) -> Device Type.

that seems to stop the warning notifications and auto pausing of music.

“…The only possible work around is to change the device type from headphones to speakers in the Bluetooth settings. …”

That is precisely how Apple did restore your option to turn it off two updates ago.

You will find similar features on the dark side (droids)