Apple Watch: 7 accessibility features you need to know and use

The Apple Watch has many accessibility features. Designed and thought out for people with disabilities, some of them can be very useful in everyday life.

There are plenty of accessibility features on the Apple Watch that are absolutely essential for some people with disabilities, but most of them can be useful to anyone as long as you know how to use them and where to find them. Here is a short list of features to know and test.

Control your Apple Watch with gestures

Apple Watch has a gesture navigation system that lets you answer calls, navigate menus, and select options. To activate it, go to the Watch app on your iPhone, open the My Watch tab, and then choose Accessibility > VoiceOver > Gestures. You can turn it on here and see different options under Gesture Settings.

Apple Watch recognizes the following gestures: pinch, double pinch, pinch, and double pinch. Clenching your fist twice, for example, will answer a call on your Apple Watch, and these gestures are very handy.

Automatically answer calls

If you expect frequent calls that you need to answer, you can set your Apple Watch to automatically answer them. To do this, open the Clock app on your iPhone and go to the “My Watch”tab, then to “Accessibility”> “Automatically answer calls”and activate “Automatically answer calls”. You can also change the delay before the response starts. The default is 3 seconds.

Call every hour

Apple Watch can beep every hour. You can even have it play a sound every half hour or every quarter hour. In the Clock app, then on the My Watch tab, go to Accessibility, then Calls and activate the option. You can then customize the alert and frequency.

Make reading texts easier on Apple Watch

On a small screen, text can be difficult to read. To make things easier, open the Clock app on your iPhone, go to the My Watch tab, and select Accessibility. There, check the necessary parameters in the Vision section. Bold Text, On/Off Labels, Decrease Transparency and Scale are of particular interest.

You can also go to the Face Gallery tab in the Clock app and then scroll down to see the Extra Big Face category. You may also consider Duo Ciphers and Mono Ciphers.

Use grayscale to save screen time

When you adjust grayscale in watchOS, all your apps appear in monochrome, which helps reduce screen time by making displays less attractive.

Automatically adjust the volume of your headphones or Bluetooth headphones.

Apple Watch can automatically turn down the volume of your Bluetooth headphones if you’ve been listening to music too loudly for a while. To do this, go to the My Watch tab in the Watch app on your iPhone, then Sounds and Vibrations > Headset Security. You should turn on notifications in your headphones to warn you when the sound level is too high, and Reduce loud sounds to automatically adjust.

watchOS allows you to customize the level switch, with each decibel level accompanied by its description. For example, 75 dB is described as “loud as a vacuum cleaner”.

Change the intensity of touch alerts

If you’re missing important notifications because you’re exercising or your Apple Watch isn’t tight, you can change the vibration intensity by going to the My Watch tab in the Watch app on Apple Watch.iPhone. There in Sounds and Vibrations then in Tactile Alerts. Tap Distinctive.