Did You Know Your iPhone Has a Built-In Noise Generator? Here's How to Use It

Listening to white noise can help reduce distractions or aid sleep, and your iPhone has a built-in tool for this. Apple calls it the Background Sounds feature, and we'll teach you how to use it to generate a variety of calming noises.

How to Turn On Background Sounds on Your iPhone

First, you need to add the Hearing option to your Control Center. To do this, open the Settings app and select Control Center. Then, scroll down and tap the Plus (+) icon next to Hearing.

To access the built-in ambient soundscapes on your iPhone, follow these steps:

expedia.com$64 Car Rental Heather

Ad

1. Open the Control Center on your iPhone.
2. Tap the Hearing icon, and then select the Background Sounds option.
3. Now, choose from a variety of sounds, including Balanced Noise, Bright Noise, Dark Noise, Ocean, Rain, and Stream. To select your preferred sound, just tap the corresponding option and adjust the volume by dragging the slider.
4. Finally, tap the Background Sounds icon, and your preferred sound will start playing.

When enabled, the Background Sounds icon is colored with a white background. Simply tap the icon again to turn it off.

Use an Accessibility Shortcut to Play Background Sounds

To quickly enable Background Sounds without having to open the Control Center every time, you can set up an Accessibility Shortcut. This allows you to activate the feature by simply triple-clicking the side (or Home) button.

Related video: 15 Hidden iPhone Features & Settings (You'll Wish You Knew Sooner) (Viral Tech)

How's it going guys?

Loaded: 1.72%

Play

Current Time 0:00

/

Duration 11:37

Quality Settings

Captions

Fullscreen

Viral Tech

15 Hidden iPhone Features & Settings (You'll Wish You Knew Sooner)

Unmute

0

View on Watch

To do this, open the Settings app on your iPhone, navigate to Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut, and choose the Background Sounds option from the list.

Now, when you next activate Background Sounds using this shortcut, it will automatically play the last sound you used.

I find this method especially helpful while trying to sleep, as I can turn on the feature without even looking at the screen; it feels quicker and much more convenient. If you still find the options limited, you may want to try some third-party white noise iPhone apps or ambient noise generators that offer more customization.