Apple Watch Notifications Are About to Get Less Annoying

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I've had an Apple Watch for nearly a decade, and in that time, I've probably kept the sound on for about a day. No one really wants to hear your watch loudly dinging and ringing all day long, especially when you're in a quiet room. And since the only way to enable and disable alerts is via software, rather than a dedicated button, it's too inconvenient for me to leave the sound on at all. So, my watch reminds silent.

But that might change with watchOS 26, Apple's upcoming update for the watch. Alongside other useful features, like the addition of a dedicated Notes app (finally), watchOS 26 introduces a new, intelligent way to manage alerts. According to Apple, the update will allow your watch to analyze the ambient noise of your current surroundings, automatically adjusting the volume of your watch's speaker accordingly. That includes sound effects for alerts, timers, alarms, incoming calls, and Siri—all will be affected by the ambience of the room or space you're in.

Hypothetically, your watch could sense that you are in a busy bar, and up the volume so you don't miss a call or an important alert. Or, more importantly, it could tell that you're in a quiet room with polite conversation, and reduce the volume considerably. I'm interested to see how it performs generally, but particularly when it detects that I'm somewhere relatively silent. If I'm in, say, a museum, and no one is speaking, will my watch make a peep? Or will it default to silent as well, to match the ambient volume of the room?

Time will tell, once I get watchOS 26 up and running on my Apple Watch. I'll definitely put it to the test, but I'm not convinced I'll actually use it. Even if alerts are more appropriate (and something I don't personally need to think about to intervene with) my guess is I'll prefer to lean on Silent mode. It isn't necessarily a watchOS thing, either: Like many of us, I keep my iPhone on silent almost exclusively. But, hey, who knows: Maybe watchOS 26 will change my mind.