How to turn on and use Android’s Sound Notifications

Accessibility is an important thing to include in products and services because not all of us have full use of our body, whether it be visual impairments, hearing impairments, being handicapped, and so on. To that extent, Google has introduced a new accessibility feature called Sound Notifications.

While it is designed with accessibility in mind, we can’t help but think that its usefulness could be extended to just about anyone. So what are Sound Notifications?

Sound Notifications is a new feature where your Android smartphone can help push notifications and alerts when it hears something that it thinks might be of importance to you. For example, if you left the tap running, it might remind you about it so that you can turn it off. It can also be used to pick up on sounds like running, smoke or fire alarms, door knocks, beeping sounds from appliances, and more.

The idea is that sometimes you might not be able to hear these sounds, whether it be because you’re hearing impaired, or if you have headphones on, or if you’re simply too preoccupied. If this sounds like a useful feature that you want to have turned on, here’s how you can do it.

How to turn on Android’s Sound Notifications

1. If you don’t own a Pixel phone, you’ll need to download the Live Transcribe app first
2. Go to your device’s Settings
3. Tap on Accessibility and select Sound Notifications
4. Tap Open Sound Notifications
5. Accept the permissions by tapping OK
6. Tap on Settings
7. Tap Sound Notifications are active and then pick from a list of sounds that you want to be notified of
8. Go back to Sound Notification’s Settings
9. Tap Notification preferences and choose how you want to be notified. If you have a Wear OS smartwatch, you can choose to receive alerts on your wearable. You can also choose to have your phone vibrate or have the camera flash light up whenever it receives a Sound Notification alert.

Source: Google