Month: July 2020

iOS 14 brings a range of valuable new features, and some of them are designed as Accessibility options but happen to be useful for just about everyone. Read along for a hands-on look at how to use iPhone Sound Recognition to get alerts for things like doorbells, running water, smoke alarms, crying babies, animals, and more.

Another one of the Accessibility features in iOS 14 that’s appealing for lots of use cases is the new “Back Tap” feature. That lets users create custom controls with a double or triple tap on the back of their iPhones.

Sound Recognition is also an Accessibility feature that can give users with hearing challenges a visual cue for a variety of sounds happening in their environment. The list includes alarms, animals, household sounds, and people. Check out all the options below. Notably, there are some valuable use cases for any user, even without being hard of hearing like getting a notification for someone at your door if you regularly wear headphones while working from home.

I’ve been testing out Sound Recognition, and it has worked reliably in my use so far. One interesting thing: I found that whistling is picked up by Sound Recognition in iOS 14 as a “siren.”

Note: iOS 14 is currently only available as a developer beta with the first public beta coming in July. Read more here on how to install it.

How to use iPhone Sound Recognition in iOS 14:

Open the Settings app and head to Accessibility

Swipe to the bottom and tap Sound Recognition

Tap the toggle to enable it, then tap Sounds

Choose the type(s) of sounds you’d like to recognize

Tap Back in the top left corner

Hands-on with iPhone Sound Recognition:

Once you turn on Sound Recognition on your iPhone, tap Sounds, and you’re able to simply toggle on all the types of sounds you’d like alerts for:

When your iPhone registers a sound, you’ll get a notification on your lock screen, home screen, or when using apps.

You can long-press to see what type of sound was recognized if you have your iPhone set up to alert you to multiple types. You’ll also get the option to snooze recognizing the sound.

So far I’ve found Sound Recognition to be very responsive. For instance, something like running water was picked up about 40 feet from my kitchen faucet while in my office (and a TV was on too).

Polar smartwatches aren’t exactly chic. Like many fitness-first wearable companies, Polar’s strength has always been its in-depth metrics and platform. When it comes to style, Polar usually relies on that plain, sporty aesthetic, as it did with the M400, M600, A300, and the A360 fitness tracker. But today it’s launching a new smartwatch, the Polar Unite, and it doesn’t make my eyes bleed! It’s also £135, which, as far as Polar smartwatches go, is pretty dang affordable.

The Unite has many of the same features Polar introduced with its Ignite smartwatch, which was released last year and targeted toward more casual fitness enthusiasts. It includes all the basics, like smartphone notifications, continuous heart rate-tracking, sleep-tracking, breathing reminders, and multi-day battery life. They’re both also waterproof up to 30 metres. The Unite also includes Polar’s FitSpark on-wrist workouts and the Nightly Recharge metric, which purports to measure how well your body’s autonomic nervous system has recovered after a night’s sleep. As for the display, it looks like the Unite is sticking to the same colour touchscreen and thick bottom bezel as the Ignite.

So…what exactly is the difference between the Unite and Ignite? For starters, it appears the Unite opts for connected GPS, meaning it relies on your phone’s GPS to track workouts as opposed to using a built-in GPS sensor. That probably explains why the Unite is £40 cheaper than the £175 Ignite. It’s also slightly lighter, weighing 32 grams to the Ignite’s 35g – a negligible difference, but still lightweight compared to some other smartwatches out there. Battery life is also a smidge shorter. The Unite has an estimated four days of battery life and 50 hours of connected GPS training, where the Ignite had five days. (Though in testing, the Ignite never lasted more than three days for me, so we’ll have to see how the Unite does under real world conditions.)

I’d say, at least from the photos, the Unite is probably the most stylish watch Polar’s ever offered. That’s an extremely low bar, but progress is progress! Where the Ignite was pretty boring, the Unite kind of looks – dare I say – cute. It’s not that Polar has drastically overhauled the Ignite’s look. It’s more that there’s a much better palette of silicone wristbands to choose from. Sure, that doesn’t sound like much, but historically Polar hasn’t really provided options beyond white, black, and a violent shade of orange or red. This time around, you can opt between black, white, pink, and blue as the default strap colours. Polar is also offering mint and blush straps for an additional £32, along with cloth, woven fabric, and leather options.

While I liked the Ignite quite a bit, it had a lot of design quirks for something priced at £175. The touchscreen was laggy, and frankly, syncing Polar watches is a pain. We’ll have to test the Unite to see if Polar’s improved on any of those issues in the past year, or whether this is just blatantly repackaging the Ignite as a cheaper version of itself. It’s probably the latter, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, unacceptable quirks for £175 might be more tolerable at £135. Also, £135 is pretty cheap for a smartwatch – that’s actually getting into fitness band territory. Plus, many of Polar’s watches cost upwards of £200, so this price isn’t too shabby for what you get.