Apple added a feature with watchOS 8 called Voice Feedback that uses Siri to audibly announce your workout progress, including things like when you reach one of your fitness goals, hit a target pace or mile/kilometer, close a ring, or complete a workout.
Voice Feedback also pauses and interrupts any music or podcasts you play when wearing AirPods or other wireless headphones while working out.
Although it is a nice feature, many people enjoy listening to podcasts, audiobooks, or music while exercising and find this feature annoying.
The feature is supposed to pause your audio, but many find that these Siri workout announcements stop their music, and playing doesn’t resume.
So if you want to stop your Apple Watch from taking and interrupting you during your activities, follow the steps below to turn off this feature for good.
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Contents
- 1 How to disable Siri Voice Feedback for workouts on Apple Watch using the Watch app
- 2 Change Voice Feedback setting directly on your Apple Watch
- 3 Final Thoughts
How to disable Siri Voice Feedback for workouts on Apple Watch using the Watch app
Luckily, it’s easy to turn off the Siri Voice Feedback feature on your Apple Watch! Follow the steps below and get back to uninterrupted listening when working out.
Here is how you can disable the Voice Feedback feature on your Apple Watch using your paired iPhone’s Watch app.
- Go to the ‘My Watch’’ tab at the bottom of the screen.
- Scroll down to the apps section and tap on
Workout.
- Toggle off ‘Voice Feedback’ at the bottom of the screen.
This change stops Siri from reading your workout statistics and alerts out loud while you are working out.
Change Voice Feedback setting directly on your Apple Watch
If you’re in the middle of a workout and your iPhone isn’t around, you can change this setting on the watch itself via the Settings app.
You can also toggle this setting on or off from your Apple Watch.
- Open Settings app > Workout and scroll down. The setting is just below the Units of Measure setting.
- Find the Voice Feedback setting and toggle it off.
How to disable announce notifications on your iPhone
The other place to check for this is in your iPhone Settings app.
- Open Settings App on your iPhone.
- Tap on Notifications.
- Scroll down and choose Fitness app.
- Under the ‘Announce’ section, turn OFF Announce Notifications.
Final Thoughts
Interestingly, this feature was also a problem with the Samsung Galaxy 3 watches when they incorporated the “Audio Guide” feature on their Workouts screens.
This problem remains even when changing the guide’s voice feedback frequency on the Samsung Watch.
Samsung’s Guide Frequency allows you to customize based on the number of miles or time duration. This type of customization is not yet available on the Apple Watch.
We hope you find this quick, helpful tip as you check out other new fitness and health features of watchOS 9.