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Your Apple Watch Is Gaining a Simple Yet Practical New Ability

Honestly, it’s a neat feature that a lot of Apple Watch wearers will probably benefit from.

A black smartwatch on a wrist displaying the settings menu with options for Siri, Sounds & Haptics, Passcode, and SOS. The time shown is 3:14.Photo by Tucker Bowe for Gear Patrol

By Tucker Bowe

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When watchOS 26 is released in September, it will introduce several new and exciting features to your current Apple Watch.

Some of the most notable additions include a wrist flick gesture for managing notifications, a Workout Buddy feature, new Control Center apps, updated Smart Replies for iMessage, and customizable widgets for the Smart Stack.

Additionally, your Apple Watch is introducing a new feature that promises to make notifications less disruptive for those around you, as well as help you hear them better if you’re in a loud environment.

A Sound Setting

Smartwatch on a wrist displaying the "Sounds & Haptic" settings screen, showing options for Silent Mode (off) and Automatically Adjust Volume (on). The time on the watch is 3:14.
When running watchOS 26, Automatically Adjust Volume will be off by default.
Photo by Tucker Bowe for Gear Patrol

When running watchOS 26, your Apple Watch will gain a new feature that allows it to intuitively adjust the volume level of notifications based on your surroundings.

As noted by Apple’s watchOS 26 press release, your Apple Watch will “automatically adjust the speaker volume based on the ambient noise in a user’s surroundings for notifications, timers, alarms, incoming calls, and Siri, allowing them to stay connected without worrying about disturbing those around them.”

Basically, if you’re at an intimate gathering with friends, your Apple Watch will be able to detect this and not ring as loudly when somebody calls you or read out loud a message you’ve received. It essentially aims to prevent a social faux pas.

On the flip side, if you’re Apple Watch detects that you’re in a loud environment, turning this setting on will further increase the sound of these notifications so that you can hear them even better.

Smartwatch on a wrist displaying a settings menu with volume options: Louder, Default, and Quieter, with Quieter selected. The time shown is 3:14.
When the Automatically Adjust Volume setting is turned on, you have the option to further make these notifications louder or quieter.
Photo by Tucker Bowe for Gear Patrol

If you’re somebody who is worried that this new setting will actually make Apple Watch notifications even more intrusive … don’t worry, you actually have some control over that.

Once the Automatically Adjust Volume setting is toggled on, you can further tweak how it’s implemented. Specifically, you can set the volume level of these notifications to be “Quieter” or “Louder,” depending on which you prefer.

If you leave the Automatically Adjust Volume setting off, you can select the exact volume level of these notifications via the volume slider.

Of course, if you have your Apple Watch permanently in silent mode — which many do — this new setting will not override it and you won’t hear any notifications.

How to turn it on?

Judging by the watchOS 26 public beta, this new setting will be turned off by default. Here’s how to turn it on.

  1. Open the Settings app on your Apple Watch.
  2. Scroll down and select Sounds & Haptics.
  3. Toggle Automatically Adjust Volume on.

Apple will officially release watchOS 26 this fall, coinciding with the announcement of the next-generation Apple Watch models.

To learn more about watchOS 26’s upcoming features, check out Apple’s blog post.

About the Author:

Tucker Bowe has been on Gear Patrol’s editorial team since 2014. As a Tech Staff Writer, he tracks everything in the consumer tech space, from headphones to smartphones, wearables to home theater systems. If it lights up or makes noise, he probably covers it.

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