iPhone keeps turning volume down

please disable this feature. This has never happened before the last update. I am hearing impaired and have to keep my headphones at 100% to hear at a 50% level. I do NOT appreciate you regulating my levels. I am am adult age 40 and am responsible enough to regulate this myself. It is extremely annoying and unnecessary. I’m not a lawyer but I think you may have some lawsuits on your hands soon from handicap hearing impaired people like me. I should have the option to turn this on or off. FIX PLEASE

Hi Daniel_UK,

We can understand wanting to get to the bottom of things with the alerts you're receiving. We'd be happy to help out with clearing that up.

You may locate details on this particular feature here:

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

As the page will note, and as the text in your screenshot of the Headphone Safety settings confirm, these notifications cannot be disabled in certain regions or countries or regions due to regulations and safety standards. Some bluetooth audio devices, such as speakers, may be identified as headphones and contribute to the headphone audio exposure, which seems to be what you're encountering.

We hope that helps clarify things.

Take care!

Which regions and countries cannot have this disabled? I use Bluetooth connections to external speakers and this keeps happening but it is ridiculous as I control the volume with the controls on the speakers depending on the setting, for instance while driving the volume knob on the receiver is generally set to low but when certain tracks come on it gets cranked up. This may not happen for days. It is even worse when riding my motorbikes as I wear earplugs to reduce the wind noise so I HAVE to have the volume louder to hear SatNav directions.

I need to to be able to disable this function and the help provided doesn't point me at a place where I can do that.

I am very frustrated with the same problem, I do not use headphones just a bluetooth speaker so have to turn everything up to full to hear it around the house. How can I select 'speaker' rather than 'headphones'

Yeah same issue here:

I'm on a motorbike wearing earplugs TO PROTECT MY HEARING. The iPhone needs to be at full gain to give sufficient signal to my bluetooth headset, where I manage the actual sound volume. Except the iPhone keeps turning down the output volume, meaning I can't hear music or navigation. So now I'm on the M25 motorway with no way to hear which exit I'm taking and no option to stop, and it's definitely not safe to try and get my iphone out of my pocket at 60mph on a motorbike to find the volume adjust. Really basic functionality removed because some nitwits aren't bright enough to realise that loud noises damage hearing, and Apple aren't able to create a nuanced solution..

Apple - if you are going to make the phone 'smart' enough to manage my in-ear volume then you better find a way for the phone to actually know what that is, rather than a blanket assumption that I'm using in-ear headphones...

Are you going to add the option to tell the phone that the device I'm using isn't a set of earphones?

Alternatively.... when can I expect my refund for the iPhone....?

Thank you for that. I have downloaded the Beta version and have set all of my external speakers in the list of devices and no longer have the problem.

I really hope the this fix makes it into the next full release

If it hadn't been resolved I was giving up on Apple completely as a handset. As a biker who uses earplugs to reduce wind noise full volume on the bluetooth speakers in my helmets was needed to hear my satnav and it kept turning itself down at the most inconvenient times.

I am glad that you can afford more than one device

Go to your Bluetooth menu in Settings. At the end of each entry is the letter i in a circle. Tap on that and for external devices you will be able to choose what type of device it is.

I am currently listening to my music on my (parked up, engine off) car stereo having set the Bluetooth entry to 'Car Stereo' and it the Db level is not being added to the stats for automatic volume reduction. I have changed the settings for my motorcycle helmets and external speakers.

The only only ones that are still providing data are my AirPods, which can't be be changed, and my wired headphones. Funnily enough, neither of these devices shows a Db level above the WHO safety recommendations.

I am using 14.4 here in Las Vegas, NV USA

i am able to go to my Bluetooth settings select the information on each device and select what “type” of device it is.

I selected “other” and haven’t had it turn down over the last 5 days.

I also deleted the headphone data in the health app

That’s not the best view of it. It’s a bit like saying that because they drive on the left in the USA they have to everywhere else in the world. That’s patently not true and “one size fits all” is not the way for a global company to gain more customers

This is getting ridiculous - my volume has been reduced to save my hearing twice today and I haven't worn any headphones as I am using external speakers.

How can this be disabled?

14.4 is the next full release and you don't need the beta.

Googling it suggests that 14.4 has not yet been released to the world so I think I am on the Beta version