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VoiceOver gesture on iPhone lowering call volume, can't figure out what it is (self.Blind)
submitted by Or0b0ur0s
My mother is blind and depends on her iPhone SE all day long. Unfortunately, her neuropathy is acting up and she's constantly bumping the screen and getting unexpected results.
One that I halfway replicated was her contention that the phone was spontaneously turning its call volume all the way down. By randomly tapping around the upper-left part of the screen during a call, I actually managed to re-create this, once in a while.
The volume slider appears, lowers itself all the way down, then goes away. I cannot for the life of me find any documentation about this, nor is it obvious what my random tapping equals as a "gesture".
I need to find out what this is so that I can teach her the opposite gesture, to undo it when she accidentally does it... because she's managing to do it almost every single call.
Anybody know VoiceOver a little better to guess what's causing this?
One that I halfway replicated was her contention that the phone was spontaneously turning its call volume all the way down. By randomly tapping around the upper-left part of the screen during a call, I actually managed to re-create this, once in a while.
The volume slider appears, lowers itself all the way down, then goes away. I cannot for the life of me find any documentation about this, nor is it obvious what my random tapping equals as a "gesture".
I need to find out what this is so that I can teach her the opposite gesture, to undo it when she accidentally does it... because she's managing to do it almost every single call.
Anybody know VoiceOver a little better to guess what's causing this?
akrazyho 3 points 1y ago
You have the rotor set to adjust the volume with the shortcut key. Change the shortcut headings or characters and that’ll fix her issue. As it is set up right now flicking upper down will adjust the volume no matter what you’re doing including on voice calls.
Or0b0ur0s [OP] 1 points 1y ago
I had it set to speaking rate, actually. Flicking up or down adjusted it normally, even while on a call. I tested that.
I had to pare down most of the things in the Rotor because she's constantly switching it by mistake. If I could've pared it down to 1 option, I would have, but there were 1 or 2 others I couldn't remove, IIRC. None of them are volume, though.
I had to pare down most of the things in the Rotor because she's constantly switching it by mistake. If I could've pared it down to 1 option, I would have, but there were 1 or 2 others I couldn't remove, IIRC. None of them are volume, though.
akrazyho 1 points 1y ago
Check the gesture controls under the command menu in the voiceover settings and see if anything is off in there but other than that I don’t know what to tell you
SiriuslyGranger 1 points 11m ago
Just have her press volume up a few times.
djquik1 1 points 1y ago
Do you have adjust volume with buttons on in sound settings?
Or0b0ur0s [OP] 1 points 1y ago
It's turned off right now, because I started off thinking that her grip was holding down the volume button.
Turns out the "adjust volume with buttons" setting doesn't actually affect call volume. Even with it off, they still operate normally. On the one hand, if she does accidentally press them, there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it. On the other hand, whatever is happening most commonly definitely ISN'T the buttons, so at least they still work if she can manage to turn it back up.
Turns out the "adjust volume with buttons" setting doesn't actually affect call volume. Even with it off, they still operate normally. On the one hand, if she does accidentally press them, there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it. On the other hand, whatever is happening most commonly definitely ISN'T the buttons, so at least they still work if she can manage to turn it back up.
bradley22 1 points 1y ago
Is audio ducking on? take your fingers and put them on the phone, then twist clockwise or anticlockwise and the.n you’ll here, audio ducking, then swipe down and if it’s on it’ll turn off. swipe down again if you turn it on to turn it off. I’d recommend finding another rotor setting so that you don’t automatically trigger it.
Or0b0ur0s [OP] 1 points 1y ago
No, I removed almost all the stuff from the rotor once I figured out you could customize it. I leave it on Speaking Rate but she routinely, mistakenly changes it to something else. Audio ducking isn't there anymore, though; I know I removed that.
bradley22 1 points 1y ago
Ah, ok.
retrolental_morose 0 points 1y ago
You're sure you arent just triggering the sensor to send the audio to the earpiece - as if you were holding the phone to your ear?
Or leaning on the volume button somewhere?
I've never seen VO directly adjust volume like that, although of course you can remap gestures these days.
Or leaning on the volume button somewhere?
I've never seen VO directly adjust volume like that, although of course you can remap gestures these days.
Or0b0ur0s [OP] 1 points 1y ago
Buttons, yes, I've ruled them out. That's what I thought it was at first, but it isn't. The phone was flat on the table and nothing & no anatomy was anywhere near the buttons when I did my testing.
Now... the head/face detection thing, I'm not sure. Doesn't that use the front-facing camera? I wasn't touching the screen anywhere near that. If it merely took a sustained touch, as if it were touching your face, that would have been easy to discover.
I have all calls set to default to Speaker, so if there were such a thing, I'd hope that it only turns speaker off, not actually lowers the volume. And it's not coming back afterwards unless you use the buttons (which is difficult for her to do). But I'll try to devise some tests with that in mind. I'm not sure what else I can do.
Now... the head/face detection thing, I'm not sure. Doesn't that use the front-facing camera? I wasn't touching the screen anywhere near that. If it merely took a sustained touch, as if it were touching your face, that would have been easy to discover.
I have all calls set to default to Speaker, so if there were such a thing, I'd hope that it only turns speaker off, not actually lowers the volume. And it's not coming back afterwards unless you use the buttons (which is difficult for her to do). But I'll try to devise some tests with that in mind. I'm not sure what else I can do.
SiriuslyGranger 1 points 11m ago
If you touch anywhere near the top it will do it! It’s trippy. So keep hands at the bottom or away from phone.
gunfart 1 points 1y ago
When voiceover is enabled, putting the earpiece close to your face and blocking the light sensor triggers it to switch from speakerphone to earpiece. If your hand is near the earpiece and blocking light to the sensor, the phone will think that it is near your ear and switches the audio from speaker to regular earpiece. There are no options, gestures, or rotor settings that will lower volume during a phone call
Or0b0ur0s [OP] 1 points 1y ago
I take it there's no way to disable that feature, is there?
EDIT: Is this consistent with the volume *remaining* low, indefinitely, until manually adjusted with the buttons while on a call? Because that's the behavior.
If it were the light sensor, shouldn't it re-raise the volume to the previous level once the sensor isn't occluded anymore?
EDIT: Is this consistent with the volume *remaining* low, indefinitely, until manually adjusted with the buttons while on a call? Because that's the behavior.
If it were the light sensor, shouldn't it re-raise the volume to the previous level once the sensor isn't occluded anymore?
gunfart 1 points 1y ago
you can disable the function from within the voiceover settings
setting > accessibility > voiceover > audio > auto select speaker in call
from within the voiceocer options menu, you can also review/modify any gestures as well. i unfortunately haven't had the time to dig through the gestures to see if there are any volume modification gestures, however i am fairly certain that there are none (or at least none set up by default)
that is a pretty strange issue you're running in to. if you figure out what it is/was and what causes it, let us know
setting > accessibility > voiceover > audio > auto select speaker in call
from within the voiceocer options menu, you can also review/modify any gestures as well. i unfortunately haven't had the time to dig through the gestures to see if there are any volume modification gestures, however i am fairly certain that there are none (or at least none set up by default)
that is a pretty strange issue you're running in to. if you figure out what it is/was and what causes it, let us know
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