Anyone else finding that the raise to wake feature has gone really weird? For one thing, it’s hit and miss as to whether it announces the time. Also, sometimes it will lock again immediately before I’ve even finished lifting, or with any movement of the device. I thought it always stayed awake for a certain period before, unless the lock button was pressed. I don’t recall it being so sensitive to movement before.
Comments
Re: Raise to wake oddities
There are several strange things with the raise to wake feature when using Voiceover.
First, as you say, often when I raise my arm, Voiceover says "Heart Rate" instead of speaking the time. I don't know how Voiceover decides where focus should be when the watch wakes up, but it would be nice if focus was on time.
Secondly, I don't particularly like Voiceover speaking as soon as I raise my arm. Sometyimes I will raise my arm just to navigate along a wall or railing. Sometimes I just raise my arm to scratch an itch. It can be a bit annoying for other people to have my watch randomly start speaking. So, I tried turning raise to wake off. The problem with that is I would like to be able to say "Hey Siri" to my watch without having to touch it. Unfortunately, "Hey Siri" doesn't work unless the watch has been woken up. At least on the phone "Hey Siri" works when the phone is locked.
Also, if you are finding that the watch turns off too quickly after waking up, you might turn off the feature that puts the watch to sleep when lowering your arm. There is also a setting for how long to keep the watch awake after it has been woken. I believe these various settings are in the Watch app under "Display and Brightness" and also in "Accessibility" or "Siri".
--Pete
@Pete.
I believe the OP is talking about their phone.
I think there's the same feature on both devices.
Yes, I meant the phone but thanks
Thank you, Pete, I was referring to the phone, but I don’t have an Apple Watch so that was interesting to read all the same. Appreciate the time taken to reply.
This has been around a while
It might be worse now. I can't say, as I turned off raise to wake years ago. Here's a blog I wrote in 2019 that mentions these issues as day 4 and day 6.
The sensitivity of raise to wake still baffles me. SIRI has an option that controls whether or not it will respond while in a pocket. But with raise to wake enabled, the number of times I hear my phone wake while in my hoodie pouch or in a backpack is beyond belief. And I can only assume that all of Apple's staff are experiencing the same issue, but because they have VoiceOver disabled, they never hear the phone when it incorrectly wakes.
For Pete
On the Apple Watch question, if you don’t want VoiceOver speaking when you raise your arm, you can go into VoiceOver settings and turn off “Speak on wrist raise”. Then the watch will still wake, but VoiceOver won’t speak until you touch the screen.
I haven’t noticed the issues on the phone, though I do find it can be pretty sensitive alright.
Dave
Re: Raise to Wake on Watch
@Dave Nason
Thanks for your suggestion about turning off raise to speak in Voiceover.
Unfortunately, when I checked, that option was already turned off for my Apple Watch. Even with that option turned off, the watch still often wakes up and says either "heart rate" or the time when I do things like reach out for a wall or railing, raise my arm to reach for something on my desk, etc.
On the other hand, I do have "raise to wake" turned on under the watch Display settings. I do that because it is the only way I can get "Hey Siri" to work on the watch without first pressing the crown. Sometimes it is nice to just be able to speak to Siri on the watch as I can on the phone without touching anything. Perhaps these two settings conflict.
--Pete
No conflict here
Hi Peter. That’s exactly the setup I have and there’s no conflict for me. I have raise to wake switched on, and speak on wrist raise switched off.
I have some usable vision and can confirm that the screen does wake when I raise my wrist, but VoiceOver does not speak unless I touch the screen.
So I’m not sure why this isn’t working correctly for you.
Dave