The Constant Microphone
The Apple Watch features a built-in “Noise” application designed to protect your hearing. To accomplish this, the watch enables a background feature called Environmental Sound Measurements. This forces the tiny microphone on the side of the watch to constantly activate throughout the day, sampling the ambient decibel level of your environment. If it detects that you have been standing near a loud construction site or a blaring concert speaker for too long, it will buzz your wrist with a warning. While this is an impressive health feature, forcing the microphone to constantly wake up, process audio, and evaluate the decibel level causes a slight, continuous drain on your battery. If you prioritize battery life over hearing warnings, you should disable this constant sampling.
How to Turn Off Environmental Sound Measurements
You can revoke the watch’s permission to passively sample ambient audio via the privacy settings.
- Open the Settings app directly on your Apple Watch (the grey gear icon).
- Scroll down the main list and tap on Privacy & Security.
- Scroll down and tap on Microphone.
- At the very top of the screen, look for the toggle switch labeled Measure Sounds.
- Tap the switch to turn it Off (the green background will disappear).
The Privacy Benefit
The change takes effect immediately. The Apple Watch will completely stop passively waking up the microphone to sample your environment. Not only will this extend your daily battery life slightly, but it also provides peace of mind for users who are uncomfortable with a wearable device constantly listening to their ambient surroundings. You can still manually open the Noise app from your honeycomb grid to check the decibel level of a room whenever you explicitly choose to.