How to turn off Headphone Safety on iPhone

Just to re-iterate my findings so far on ios14.3 in the UK on a UK phone :

• Bluetooth'd to a car : health data is not accumulated. volume warnings don't happen
• Bluetooth'd to a Denon envaya mini speaker : health data is not accumulated, volume warning's don't happen
• .. to aftershokz air bone conduction headphones : health data accumulates, warnings happen. The output is not what the phone thinks it might be and is very dependent on where they are on your cheek bones.
• ... to Sony full size noise cancelling headphones : health data accumulates, warnings happen. The output is probably in line with what the phone thinks. If its at 100dB then its usually a very therapeutic moment that I do not expect to be interrupted.

So it's apparent there is some logic differentiating these devices as headset vs. not headset. Car and Speakers don't seem to be a problem for me. The bone conduction headphones are the real issue because I use them a lot and they are accumulating time spent in the allegedly "higher" listening level bands. So that when I really want loud music from proper headphones .. I get rudely interrupted.

Either way, with or without the bone conducting headphone issue, the intrusion with a head set is very unwelcome. There should be an override (with appropriate disclaimer and legalese) for this. This can be connected with parental controls so that my children cannot override it unless I allow it, but the override is more important. We understand the problem with children and this is why when they were younger we bought them headphones that themselves were restricted. And we talk to them about health matters, I don't think this is a necessary feature.

Others here are saying the restrictions apply regardless of device type. Is this on ios 14.3 or are you still on 14.2 ?

I also want to highlight again that my ipad and my mac are unaffected. I am therefore now using my ipad increasingly for music during lockdown. I am so unexcited about the iphone for music now.

I contacted them:

• by email
• with contact form
• T. Cook email

In their head it must be up to us to adapt with recent devices so that the iPhone can make the difference between a headset and a speaker. They'll never go backwards

Here's the info I gathered from Apple support today:

• This feature is rolling out in the US, that is not a mistake.
• Depending on what operating system the phone was manufactured/shipped with is what determines if the phone is able to toggle the feature on/off. For example, a new phone can ship with IOS 41.1 and have no issue turning it off, but the same iPhone can ship with IOS 14.2 and not have the ability to turn the feature off.
• I was told the only way this feature will show up on a phone is if a hard reset (different than erase all content and settings) is done, any phone that does this will not have the ability to turn it off moving forward in the US.
• There are currently no plans to change this, you can change all other devices in bluetooth settings to not be "headphones" however Apple Airpods will always be considered headphones and be automatically turned down.

It seems the only solutions right now for those with Airpods are to buy an older phone which hopefully won't be hard reset or to get different earbuds that you can classify as stereo in bluetooth.

Hope this helps!

Apple’s own interpretation is a mix of EU regulations and dreaded WHO’s RECOMMENDATIONs. I wrote that in caps for a reason. This 7-day mandate comes from WHO. See this screenshot from Privacy / Health / Headphone Audio Levels

Try going with 100dB for 24 minutes. Choosing reduce loud sounds won’t do anything for you unless you set it to 75dB. At 95dB it takes 1,5 hours, 90dB 4 hours, 80dB 40 hours to hit the threshold. And believe me you will unless you constantly clear headphone level data from health like me.

That chart you’re looking at doesn’t matter one bit. What matters is this chart. As you can see it filled 15% in 40 mins @ 95dB with reduce loud sounds turned on. Guess what happens in 4 hours at this rate?

All here are the different pages in my gold iPhone 12 Pro Max 512gb, and my wife’s blue iPhone 12 Pro Max 512gb. Remember they were both purchased and received at the same time. I have reached out to zollotech, everythingapplepro, mrwhostheboss, and zone of tech to see if any of them are interested. The pics below are under sounds and haptics/headphone safety. No the the button replaced with the graph.

Neither phone has been reset. Both phones are now running 14.2.1.

I apologize if someone has already posted these.

If anyone needs more info on our phones, please let me know.

We are located in Louisiana.

Yeah after I posted earlier I actually activated it and took it a notch down setting it to 95 decibels but haven’t tried it yet as I’ve gone to look after my daughter. When I did activate it was set to the second notch 80 decibels but when the volume was being turned down on my Bluetooth speaker it seemed a lot quieter than that so I’m not very optimistic that this is going to solve the issue 😕

It was on iPhone 12 out of box on some and others it went on with 14.2 update. According to Apple they did it and it will be rolled out to all iPhones in updates they say it’s mandated in USA. I cannot find where it is and they didn’t have a specific regulation they’d give me. I also reviewed the WHO recommendations from 2019 and they go way beyond that. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/280085/9789241515276-eng.pdf

Yes it applies to all 3rd party alarm clocks, so your point is to force people to use the Apple alarm clock rather than have a choice?

it’s ridiculous. It applies to far more than just headphones, the same standard level of decibels that are “safe” for headphones cannot and should not be applied to a blue tooth speaker, car play, 3rd party alarm clocks, Netflix

etc ...what about those that use for music? Apple markets iPhones to music artists -These phones can no longer be used. Even within WHO recommendations it merely states a warning notification giving user the option to continue listening at their own risk.

this is definitely buggy, peoples volumes are shut repeatedly, even when health data is cleared out. it went off and I turned volume back up, 9 times in a 3 minute span 7:04-7:07pm

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.

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.

This annoys me too, especially as I’m not actually listening on headphones, my Bluetooth speaker is far away and across the workshop so I need it loud.

the only way I have found to combat this when there is no disable button is to delete the data on my health app, you have to be “on it” though, because as soon as it detects 7 days of loud listening it will turn it down.

if anyone knows a better way or found this doesn’t work please let me know.

If your device is bluetooth٫ go to the bluetooth settings hit the blue i in a circle and it will say Device Type > Select "Other"and the notifications won't bother you anymore٫ because technically the iPhone is not reading it as a headphone. This is for ios 14.4

When this started months ago there were people in the USA involved and some could and some couldn’t turn that off . In UK I could not turn it off. It seemed to vary round the world with no pattern. Very early it was noticed this was a WHO recommendation not EU.