help with taptic time

By joshl, 11 November, 2020

Forum
watchOS and Apple Watch Apps

Hey all,
I am trying to enable taptic time on my apple watch SE, but i can't get it to work. Here is what i ahve done so far:
confirmed it is on
turned on silent mode
confirmed that "speak time" is set to "control with silent mode"

After following these steps, i have tried to use the prescribed gestures, (2 finger double tap, or 2 finger tap and hold) to get the taptic time, but no luck.
I would appreciate any help people have to offer.

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Comments

By Holger Fiallo on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 07:20

Is one finger double tap to get the time, 3 times one finger to get the minutes in 10 meaning 30, 4 times one finger to get the minutes in 1 unit.

By Carlos M Contreras on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 07:20

I think you are using the procedure for people who doesn't use VoiceOver. I get the taptic time with a one finger double click. I don't have the silent mode activated. That is a requirement for getting taptic time without VO.

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 07:20

It's really confusing. Just double tap with one finger to get it to work with VO. That said, it's super finnicky. It's going to start chattering more often than not.

By Vsevolod Popov on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 07:20

Hi! Yesterday I purchased my first apple watch SE and I also try to understand how and where it works. I set the minimouse clockface, I understood that the haptic time will work on a silent mode. When I perform a double tap, mini starts speaking the time. In which situation will this thing work?

By Holger Fiallo on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 07:20

In reply to by Vsevolod Popov

1 finger double tap will tell you the time with VO, 2 taps will give you the time with haptic. 3 times will give you the minutes via 10 and 4 times will give you minutes in single units.

By Kerby on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 07:20

With VO turned on, simply wake the watch with a one-finger single tap. You will not hear anything. then, do a one-finger double-tap and you will get it. Works for me every time and I'm using watch Os 7.

I've been struggling to get the stupid feature to work consistently on my watch SE ever since I bought it, and yeah. Yeah, this seems to do it. You can't just double or triple tap. You tap, wait a beat, and then either single tap for hours and minutes or double tap for minutes only. The fact that this isn't advice offered by Apple and is instead just some tidbit that gets tossed from person to person is obscenely annoying, but I'm not surprised one bit.

Thanks for the advice. I'll keep trying it throughout the day to gauge the consistency, but so far it's been working flawlessly.

Edit: Yup, this is it. It works every single time when I do this. Now if they can just fix the ringer bug, I'll be good to go.

By Jean M on Thursday, December 24, 2020 - 07:20

First, you don't actually use Silent Mode that is in the Control Center. Here's how I got it working.
I'm using an Apple Watch Series 6 with watchOS 7.2. But this should work on other models that support taptic time.

1. Raise To Wake must be on. On Apple Watch, go to Settings, General, Wake Screen, and make sure that Wake on Wrist Raise is On.
2. Under Sounds & Haptics, I have Haptics Alerts set to On and Cover to Mute set to On.
3. Under Clock, Speak Time must be set to On, and Control with Silent Mode must be selected.

To Activate the Taptic time:
1 If the watch is awake, place your palm over the watch face to put it to sleep.
2. Turn your wrist so that the watch face is down, and then turn wrist to face up again. This is an inobtrusive way of activating the wrist raise.
3. Use a one-finger double tap to feel hours and minutes, or a one-finger triple tap for just the minutes.

I don't know if it makes a difference in watch behaviour, but on the iPhone, I have Wake on Wrist Raise turned off under Accessibility. I know this is a contradiction, but it works. So far I haven't noticed any extra speaking when moving my wrist around.

This is my first watch and I've only had it a few days, so sorry if some of what I say is obvious. I'm still learning my way through features. Hope this helps.

By Adrianne on Thursday, December 24, 2020 - 07:20

In reply to by Jean M

I just got an Apple Watch SE for Christmas, and I could not figure out how to do taptic time. Your comment solved my problem! I really appreciate it! I think a lot of the descriptions they give you in the watch app are four sighted people, like turning on silent mode. I had no idea I didn’t have to do that. I’ve had an iPhone for years, so I thought learning the watch would be easier. But so far it’s foreign to me. I’m grateful for this site and all the members who leave helpful comments!