Sound Recognition

In this video, we’re going to look at sound recognition. With sound recognition, what we can do is have the iPhone notify us when there’s a specific sound, such as running water or a fire alarm or a dog barking, or even a baby crying. This was introduced with iOS 14. Let’s take a look at sound recognition on the iPhone. Let’s go to my iPhone.

Now, this is an accessibility option, so in order to turn it on, what we need to do is we need to go to our Settings app. From here, what we do is we go over to Accessibility. Under Accessibility, you’re going to see an option for Sound Recognition.

Now, this is going to be turned off by default. Also, when you do turn this on, to recognize any sounds, you will not be able to use Hey Siri. You have to either use sound recognition or Hey Siri. So when I turn this on to listen for sounds, it’s going to tell me that I can no longer use Hey Siri. So let’s go ahead and see what I mean. I tap on this, and then I go up to the slider here to turn it on. Now, what I need to do is I need to select which sounds I want the iPhone to listen for. Now I tap on this, and we can see we have many different sounds here.

So let’s say I wanted to have the iPhone notify me when it hears a siren. I go over to the right and tap on the slider, and watch what happens. I get a dialog box saying that Hey Siri will no longer work. I’m okay with that. I’d rather have it do sound recognition. So I’m going to turn on sound recognition.

Now when my iPhone hears a siren, what it’s going to do is it’s going to notify me. Let’s go with a doorbell. I go over to the right, tap on the slider, and now when my iPhone here’s the doorbell, it’s going to notify me. Now I’m just going to swipe up from the bottom and now let’s play the sound of a doorbell and see what happens with my iPhone. [doorbell sound] And now we can see I have a notification there saying that it recognized a doorbell. If a siren were to go off, I would get a notification saying that a siren was going off.

So that’s how sound notifications work on the iPhone. It’s an accessibility option. So you just go into the Settings app and then go to Accessibility. From there, you’re going to see Sound Recognition. Tap on that to turn it on. Once you turn it on and listen for any sounds, Hey Siri will no longer work.

So that’s how sound recognition works on the iPhone.