Listening to natural sounds can lower stress, relieve perceived pain and foster a more positive disposition, according to research from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Other studies suggest that white noise could help parents get their babies to sleep, adults learn words, and improve learning in environments full of distractions. And if you have an iPhone, it can double as a white noise machine, saving you money on a new device.
Read more: White Noise Versus Brown Noise: Which One Is Best for Sleep?
When Apple released iOS 15 in 2021, the operating system brought a hidden feature to your iPhone called Background Sounds. It allows you to turn your iPhone into a white noise machine, and you can play these sounds by themselves or under any podcast, music or video streaming app.
When Apple first introduced the feature, there were six ambient sounds to play on a loop: rain, stream, ocean, bright, balanced and dark noise, which are different pitches of white noise. When Apple released iOS 18 last September, it added two sounds to the feature: night and fire. So instead of buying a white noise machine, save yourself some money and just use your iPhone.
Read more: Everything You Need to Know About iOS 18
Here’s how to enable Background Sounds on your iPhone.
How to set up Background Sounds on your iPhone
1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap Accessibility.
3. Tap Audio & Visual.
4. Tap Background Sounds.
5. Tap the toggle next to Background Sounds near the top of the menu to enable the feature.
In this menu you can also tap Sound to listen to the different noise options. If you’re using the feature for the first time, the sounds have to download, so it might take a second. There are also two other toggles in this menu: Use When Media Is Playing and Stop Sounds When Locked. Tapping the toggle next to Use When Media Is Playing allows Background Sounds to keep playing while you watch a video or listen to music. And tapping the toggle next to Stop Sounds When Locked ensures Background Sounds will turn off when your device locks. If you don’t have this enabled, the sounds will continue to play when your device locks.
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How to access Background Sounds from Control Center
Instead of searching through Settings each time you want to turn Background Sounds on, here’s how you can set up a toggle in the Control Center to turn the feature on to use on your iPhone.
I like rain but fire and night are also pleasant.
1. Open Control Center.
2. Tap the plus (+) sign in the top left of your screen.
3. Tap Add a Control near the bottom of your screen.
4. Tap Hearing control (ear icon) to add to Control Center.
Once the Hearing control icon is in Control Center, tap it to see three options: Speaker, Background Sounds and Live Listen. Then tap the musical notes next to Background Sounds to turn the feature on. You can also tap on the words Background Sounds to open a menu to choose a different background sound as well as adjust the volume.
Use Accessibility Shortcuts for Background Sounds
You can also set up an accessibility shortcut to turn Background Sounds on or off from your home screen or within an app. Here’s how to set it up.
1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap Accessibility.
3. Tap Accessibility Shortcut.
4. Tap Background Sounds.
Now when you press the side button on your iPhone three times, Background Sounds will turn on. You can tap the button three times again to turn it back off.
For more iOS news, here’s all the features included in iOS 18.5 and iOS 18.4. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet and what we hope to see in iOS 19.
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