Help me with my iPhone & Apple Watch settings, please

November 26, 2021 12:17 PM

My Apple Watch is overriding the settings I have on my phone. I'm sure there's just some setting issue that I can correct in half a second but I can't find it. Details inside.

What I want:
-- My phone, not on silent, to make an alert sound when I receive a text or other notification.
-- My watch, set on silent, to remain silent (though the little haptic buzz thing it does is fine).

What's actually happening:
-- If my watch is on silent, then it remains silent and my phone does too, even though I can see in my phone settings that it is not on silent.
-- If I turn off silent on my watch, my watch will sound a notification and my phone continues to be silent.
-- If I'm not wearing my watch, my phone behaves as I expect it to: makes a sound unless it's set on silent.

Phone is a 6s running iOS 14.8.1.
Watch is an SE running 7.6.2

What am I doing wrong here?

posted by BlahLaLa to Technology (9 answers total)

Response by poster: Update: I just noticed that my phone/watch work the way I want them to when I receive a text from outside the Apple ecosystem. Those notifications sound on my phone and are silent on my watch.
posted by BlahLaLa at 12:38 PM on November 26, 2021

Have you looked at the notifications settings for Messages specifically (capital-M "Messages", the Apple messaging app) in both the iPhone settings and the Notifications section of the Watch app?
posted by mskyle at 2:27 PM on November 26, 2021

Response by poster: mskyle: The notifications on my phone are what I expect them to be re: sounds, banners. The notifications on my watch actually have "mirror my iphone" checked -- which is weird, because it's the phone mirroring the watch. Thoughts?
posted by BlahLaLa at 4:21 PM on November 26, 2021

I mute my watch by swiping up on the watch face and tapping the little bell button. It has no effect on my phone.

Are you doing something else to make your watch silent? Like some setting about notifications? That could be the problem.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 5:56 PM on November 26, 2021

Response by poster: Yeah, Winnie the Proust, that's the weird thing: I do the exact same thing and it does silence my watch...but also my phone!
posted by BlahLaLa at 6:19 PM on November 26, 2021

Have you played with the Airplane Mode and Do Not Disturb settings in the Apple Watch app on your phone? They are under General.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 5:03 AM on November 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Winnie the Proust, those are all what I expect them to be...but still, I'm left with this situation where my watch is taking precedence over my phone. :(
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:48 PM on November 27, 2021

If you're on Twitter, I'd send a note to @AppleSupport. They've always been very responsive to me, without regard to warranty status. Good luck!
posted by Winnie the Proust at 2:31 PM on November 28, 2021

Response by poster: So I guess I'll mark this resolved but it wasn't resolved. This feels like a glitch of some sort and I've stopped trying to fix it, alas.
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:51 AM on December 27, 2021