Noise-canceling headphones are great for blocking out distractions, but they can also block out the sounds you really need to hear, like the courier at the front door with your important package. With Apple’s Accessibility feature, your iPhone can listen for you and alert you when the doorbell rings.
Meet Audio Recognition, a related feature that uses your iPhone’s microphone to constantly track specific sounds. When it detects it, you’ll receive a notification that plays through your connected headphones, along with a vibration on your iPhone (or Apple Watch, if you have one on).
This feature is primarily for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but it’s equally useful for anyone who works from home and regularly wears AirPods or noise-canceling headphones.
How to enable bell notification
- OPEN Settings on your iPhone.
- Tap Accessibility.
- Under Hearing, tap Sound and name recognitionand then tap on Sound recognition.
- Turn it on Sound recognitionand then tap Sounds.
- In the Home section, tap Door bell and turn it on on the next screen. You will also see an option to choose a specific notification tone.
Please note that your iPhone may need to download a small file (approximately 30MB) before the feature will activate, so a Wi-Fi or data connection may be required.
Teach your iPhone to recognize your ringtone
If your iPhone doesn’t reliably detect your particular ringtone, you can teach it to recognize the sound by following these steps:
- Go to Settings ➝ Accessibility ➝ Sound and name recognition ➝ Sound recognition ➝ Sounds.
- Tap Own appliance or belland then enter a name.
- Place your iPhone near the doorbell and tap Start listening.
- Ring the bell. Repeat this five times to complete the workout.
Quick access via Control Center
Once audio recognition is enabled, iOS will automatically add a toggle to Control Center. From there, you can press and hold the sound recognition icon to quickly enable or disable specific sounds without having to delve into Settings, which is handy if you just want doorbell detection when you have headphones at home.
The sound recognition feature can also detect smoke alarms, dogs barking, babies crying, running water and more. Just keep in mind that Apple doesn’t recommend relying on this feature in high-risk or emergency situations.