How to turn off Headphone Safety on iPhone

Can’t disable this in UK, Android do something similar every so on they reduce the volume and you have to manually increase again, anyway I went into the Bluetooth settings for my headphones and changed the device from headphones to other…. Stopped the pop ups for me

Watch this GIF made on iPhone SE (1st Gen) iOS 14.2. Watch till the end.

It's easier to refer you to this post than repeat it:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252019254?answerId=254120885022#254120885022

Go to settings..

screen time..

content and privacy restrictions..

scroll down to allow changes

find reduce loud sounds and disallow

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

Some of us have been handed a nasty surprise from Apple after recently updating to IOS 14.2. Prior to iOS 14.2 our phones had a feature called headphone safety which notified us that the volume of our headphones was too high and lowered it back down autonomously. This feature was mandated for EU states but it was optional for everywhere else, essentially if you lived outside of Europe, you were able to turn this feature off.

Once you update your phone to iOS 14.2 there is no longer an option to disable this headphone safety feature, whether you live in the EU or outside of Europe (I live in Canada). Okay, so what’s the big deal? Well, first thing, ethically speaking, medical concerns such as hearing loss, which this feature is trying to prevent, are essentially a personal choice, which should not have any interference with a Tech company.

More importantly, the feature has been designed terribly. It cannot differentiate between Bluetooth headsets, Bluetooth speakers, and Bluetooth receivers for your car radio. We typically listen to music quite loud on Bluetooth speakers, since they are typically further away from us, however since the phone cannot differentiate between a Bluetooth speaker and Bluetooth headphones, it assumes your listening to headphones too loud and lowers the volume for you to 50%. If you higher the volume manually it will continue to lower it every 20-30 minutes. This experience becomes dangerous when driving as it forces you to either pull over or reach for your phone and fiddle with the buttons while driving, which can have dangerous consequences.

We have tried reaching out to apple, and we were met with disappointing results. The recommended help was to submit your feedback to apples feedback page: https://www.apple.com/feedback/ Upon accessing the feedback page, there isn’t even an option to report any feedback for iOS 14.2 bugs/ features.

Shockingly, posts submitted to the apple community boards/forums kept being deleted, and I was personally threatened to have my apple ID deleted and ISP blocked if I continued to raise awareness in regards to this issue. This is truly a first for Apple, in 13 years that I’ve been a customer, I never thought I would get threatened this way. So one must assume there is no help coming, no consideration, no willingness to engage in discourse by Apple in regards to this with the impacted users.

Apples mythological existence was largely propelled by the introduction of the iPod, a device that made it easy for us to enjoy music, how we wanted, where we wanted. Today, amongst so many limitations due to the global pandemic, all we really ask is to please, let us enjoy our music uninterrupted, un-convoluted, we need this right now, for some of us, music is the only thing we have left to keep us afloat.

Please allow those who are not within the EU the ability to turn this feature off; we are all conscientious adults able to manage our hearing.

This is not a smear campaign against Apple, we just want to be heard, much like we just want to hear our music.

[Edited by Moderator]

If you couldn't find it under health app, then I am surprised.

Please check under these

Try --> Settings > Music > [If not found]

Try this

Type Headphone in the search box of settings and see the option available. See the pic below

Found a workaround that lasts for the week, go to your health app/hearing/headphone audio levels/ scroll to bottom and select show all data.

Delete all the data and it resets to keeping track from the beginning again.

It's not Apple's choice: " "Due to regulations and safety standards, headphone notifications can’t be turned off in certain countries or regions.”   (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211903)

As others also mentioned, some devices still have the toggle because they were built before the feature went into effect.

That’s the whole point of this thread. Any iPhone activated with 14.2 or later already on it in the US and other locations do not allow you to disable headphone notifications and automatic volume reduction per local regulation. The problem is many Bluetooth speakers are identified by iOS as a headphone and Apple acts like to treat us like children and turn down the volume for us. It appears that the volume detection isn’t by microphone but by line level out which means devices where you need higher levels to send sound get registered as high headphone levels and gets turned down.

A lot of back and forth with fanboys claiming Apple don’t read this rather than contribute sensible suggestions, so some of you nay have missed the possible workaround someone else suggested.

First. Create a shortcut to add Health Data, log Environmental Sound level to Health app of 0.0000000000001 Db ( for example - just add a low value).

Next, set Automation to run this shortcut when your chosen Bluetooth device connects. Therefore you are artificially lowering your ‘score’ in the whatever means Apple is recording and deciding to trigger the volume warning.

Remains to be seen how effective this is in my personal circumstances but so far it’s the closest thing to a workaround we have.

Same. I’m in the states, and it’s greyed out, so it’s not able to be toggled. From everything I’ve read Apple has done this permanently. I also removed all the data from my health app, which I read should give you a free pass for 7 days, but that doesn’t work either. I was able to label my other speakers as not headphones, but when using my headphones those can’t be relabeled and I’m an avid runner which makes rubs excruciating having to fiddle with the volume every 15 minutes. I wrote to Apple through one of their forms on this site. All I can hope is enough people complain.

I live in the US too and I don’t have the option. Apparently from what I’ve read if you have an iPhone 12 that came with iOS 14 you don’t get the option no matter where you live. The info about any laws is the EU requirement for it to be default limit to 85db, but allows for the option to turn the limit off. No such laws in the US that I can find (tried DuckDuckGo, Google, and law.cornell.edu), unless you can link one.

Nice rant. So you didn't read past the opening post to see this has been addressed in iOS 14.4?

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

Oh and we are just users on this user to user only forum. Threating us you'll never buy Apple again, doesn't matter to any of us at all.

As of 5.31.21 latest update USA this option no longer exists. Try setting Bluetooth device types in Bluetooth settings. Tap i next to each device and classify device as needed. The technology doesn’t know the difference between an audio file with low output and actual high volume so it shouldn’t even be an option. Besides, APPLE, I’m an adult and I resent the mollycoddling. How about you stay in your lane, APPLE.