How to stop voiceover from saying, screen dimmed, when autolock is enabled?

By Igna Triay, 16 October, 2023

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hey all.
Recently I started using autolock on my phone. I have it set so that my phone locks automatically after 1 minute. However', before the phone autolocks, you can hear voiceover announce, screen dimmed. I seem to remember there being a way to disable this message, as frankly, its annoying. So is there a way to disable this? I do have locking sounds enabled, by the way.

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Comments

By Siobhan on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

I've got screen curtain on but even if I had not, it would make sense to hear screen dimmed. That's letting the user know, the phone's about to lock. I only find it mildly annoying when I'm watching my ride share progress and it just dimms and locks. A simple fix, either changing the time to longer, i never have, or just grin deal. I guess I've used phones so long it just doesn't even matter much.

By Siobhan on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

I get people use it differently but once I know how something works, I really don't want or need the same repetitive double tap to open for example, yes I know what to do to open something. I like my stuff as little verbal as possible. wish they'd bring back the hang up with power button and also let us answer like that, I absolutely can not stand the magic tap. It's unreliable at best, damn stupid at worst. Again whatever works is fine but for me, less is more productivity. I mean you have the sound, the nudge when the phone locks, that annoying beeping sound from voice over, again which I turn off, so I guess that works for you. Let's see what the next IOS gives us.

By Siobhan on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

Yes there is, it's one of the first things i turn off after audio ducking. I just don't quite remember where it is. I'd go through the sounds and you'll hear it when you preview it. I've been since IOS three or so, so you can imagine how I really don't want much talking. I know of a friend who has even less then I do and that's saying something. Time for coffee

By Holger Fiallo on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

Morning, all. Go to setting, sounds and slide to the end. Is there.

By Brian on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

One. How to disable the "screen dimmed" message. Work in progress, stay tuned…
Two. How to disable VoiceOver lock screech sound: go to VoiceOver, > sounds, and haptics, than scroll all the way to the bottom to lock, sound, and turn that sound off.
Three. Go to accessibility > touch. There will be a setting labeled "prevent side button from hanging up calls". Turn this off to use the side button to hang up phone calls.

Now, I am going to go back to bed and die for a few hours… 🧛‍♂️

By Siobhan on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

Thx Brian, the switch next to prevent lock button from ending call is off, so I guess I can use it. I forgot I set it up ages ago. Sips coffee mmmm :)

By Jim Neitzel on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

An ugly and effective way to do this is through pronunciation settings.

Go to voice settings, speech, pronunciation and click the add button.

Type “screen dimmed” as the phrase. type “ “ as the pronunciation.

By Brian on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

I will give Jim Neitzel's suggestion a go, but earlier I had tried "Screen dimmed" as the phrase, and "..." as the Pronunciation.

iPhone never locked...
It was odd. I even tried playing with the screen lock timeout option, moved it from 2 minutes up to 30seconds.

Still no luck.

Finally deleted my Pronunciation and all was well.

This was on my SE2, just fyi. Oh! and running iOS 16.6.1

By Jim Neitzel on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

This little trick does work on my iPhone 12 Pro. I use voiceover pronunciations to change the way a lot of iPhone alerts are communicated by voiceover. Never had a issue like that!

By Igna Triay on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

Try doing the following.
Don't do anything, wait for voiceover to announce screen dimned. Immediately after voiceover anounces this, perform a quadruple tap with 3 fingers. Roiceover will announce the last phrase coppied to the clipboard, which should be screen dimmed. With that copied to the clipboard, go into settings, accessibility, voiceover, speech, pronunciations, and hit add. In the phrase, field, paste the contents of the clipboard, which should be, the, screen dimned, phrase. Now, in the substitution field, type a space. Now, just wait. Your phone won't announce anything, just make the locked sound, but you won't hear screen dimned. By the way, per testing, you have to type something into the replacement field. Leaving it blank won't work, you'll still hear screen dimned. I tested this twice, and when I typed a space bar into the substition field, I got this to work. Try this and see if it orks; it did for me.

By Brian on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

So, I took the advice given above and that worked. So thanks for that.
In my defense though, in my original attempt, I used an "ellipsis", which is pressing the "period" or "full stop" key (for you Brits out there) 3 times., but yeah, that failed me.
Ah well, at least I no longer have to hear my phone say "screen dimmed" every minute non use". 😅

By Missy Hoppe on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

I was super excited when I first heard that this feature was coming back. I remember using it all the time when I had my iphone 5S. Unfortunately, I have never even once gotten the side button to end a call on my iphone 13 pro. I can't count how many times I checked the relevant accessibility settings, but no matter what, the side button does absolutely nothing if I press it during a call, apart from lock the phone of course. If someone could please explain what I'm doing wrong, I would really, really appreciate it. This used to be one of my favorite iphone features, so it's frustrating to know that it supposedly exists but I can't use it.

By Brian on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

It has never been the same since it was brought back. My suggestion(s) would be:
• Make sure your ear has become one with the phone.
• Maybe during such calls, temporarily disable VO.
• Instead of "clicking" the button, try holding it for about 1/2 of a second.

HTH.

By Brad on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

I've always used it and it works fine.

Yes sometimes you have to be precise, like if you're lazy and just lying in bed poking at the screen it probably won't work, but if you're precise it should hang up every time.

Also, and don't quote me on this, I think you can ask siri to hang up.

By Brian on Monday, October 23, 2023 - 12:42

You can also ask Siri to answer calls. 😃