Did you just get your first Apple Watch? Excited about the features on your watch and AirPods but annoyed with the constant Siri voice reading aloud your text messages and other notifications?
The good news is that, yes, you can stop Siri from reading out your text messages and app notifications on your Apple Watch by changing just a few settings changes.
Contents
Related reading
- Apple Watch haptics and vibrations not working, steps to fix it
- Manage Storage on your Apple Watch. Need to free up storage first?
- How To Update Body Measurements on Your Apple Watch and iPhone
- Apple Watch keeps announcing workout activity details. How to disable
How to make your Airpods or Beats stop reading texts and other notifications when connected to your Apple Watch
Siri’s behavior is a feature that can be controlled via the Settings app.
The central idea behind this Announce Notifications (or Message) feature is to provide easy access to your text messages without tapping your Apple Watch or accessing your iPhone.
How to stop Siri from reading a message or notification on demand
If you don’t want to turn this feature completely, you can turn it off while Siri is reading your message or notification via these methods:
- Tell Siri to “Stop” or “Cancel.”
- Press either Force Sensor for AirPods Pros or AirPods 3rd generation. Press the Digital Crown for AirPods Max. Double-tap either of your AirPods for AirPods 2nd generation.
- Remove one of your AirPods for AirPods Pro and AirPods 2nd and 3rd generation.
Here is how you can disable this feature on your Apple Watch to prevent Siri from reading aloud your texts
- First, place at least one of your AirPods or Beats in your ears. You won’t see the Announce Notifications option when you don’t have an AirPod or Beats in your ear.
- Open your watch’s Control Center and see if the Announce Notification icon is highlighted–if so, tap it once to turn it off so it’s grayed out and not active.
- If it’s not responding, make sure you place your AirPods or Beats in your ears
- And if you don’t see this control, add it first to your iPhone’s Control Center, then restart your Apple Watch
- Open the Settings App on your Apple Watch
- Scroll down and tap on Siri
- Next, tap on Announce Notifications (or Messages)
- Disable this setting by toggling it off. That’s it!
When you toggle Announce Notifications off, you won’t get any announced messages or notifications from ANY app.
You can also make this change on your paired iPhone
- Open Settings > Siri & Search
- Scroll down to Announce Notifications (or Messages)
- Toggle off Announce Notifications
Choose your apps for Announce Notifications
If you want to use this feature but only for select apps, you can customize which apps you allow Siri to announce notifications on your AirPods or Beats.
- Open the Settings app on your Apple Watch.
- Go to Siri > Announce Notifications, scroll down, then toggle on the apps you want audio notifications from and toggle off the apps you don’t.
Turning off Announce Notifications with Siri does not turn off Siri
When you disable the Announce Notifications, it does not disable any other Siri features.
For example, you can still use Siri to send messages using your Apple Watch.
Give it a try!
Raise your Apple Watch and say, ‘Hey Siri, Send a message to (enter in a name or even your own name) that I will be late to the meeting.’
The message is sent out automatically when you lower your arm.
Want to announce notifications and messages with Siri but at a lower volume?
What if you didn’t want to completely stop this feature but instead want Siri’s message announcements at a lower volume?
Currently, we only know how to manually turn the volume down when Siri is actually reading (announcing) a message. While listening to a message or notification, you can turn the Digital Crown to change the volume.
Another quick way to adjust Siri’s volume for announcing messages is to send yourself a message (or ask a family member.) Then adjust Siri’s volume as it reads the message using your paired iPhone.
You can do this via Settings, but it requires you to lower Siri’s volume for everything.
How to adjust Siri’s volume on your Apple Watch
- On your watch, open the Settings app
- Go to General > Siri
- Scroll down to Voice Volume — Speaker
- Tap the speaker icons inside the volume slider, or tap the slider and turn the Digital Crown to lower and raise Siri’s volume
Remember, any adjustments you make here are universal to all of Siri!
Calibrating Audio Volume when using Apple Watch and AirPods
Using the Settings App on your Apple Watch > Tap on Siri and scroll down to the section after Voice Feedback, and you find Voice Volume.
Tap on the speaker icons to control how loud Siri’s response is when you use Siri.
One other setting that is helpful for users who are sensitive to loud sounds, in general, is disabling loud sounds.
To do this, open up the Settings app on your Apple Watch, tap on Sounds & Haptics and scroll down to the section HEADPHONE AUDIO.
Here you can tap on Reduce Loud Sounds. Enable this feature and calibrate it to the decibel levels you want to use by tapping on the speaker icon.
New additions to Siri for Apple Watch
With the latest watchOS, Siri is much faster in its response, and overall the performance when it comes to voice detection and response is many times better than what it used to be on the previous version of watchOS.
The best way to try it out is by using on-device dictation!
We hope that you found this article helpful. Follow us for new tips, tricks, and tutorials for your wearables!
