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Help me understand the "do not disturb" function.

annk

annk

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Original poster
Staff member
Apr 18, 2004
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Somewhere over the rainbow
The more I read about the "do not disturb" function, the more confused I get. Here's what I'm trying to do:
  1. Allow apps to notify me on my S4 AW with sounds and/or haptics, depending on my preferences.
  2. Silence those notifications when I'm asleep (I wear the watch at night for sleep monitoring with AutoSleep). I assume I can use "do not disturb" for this.
  3. Allow all calls to come through on my phone, day or night.

What I've done:

Set my phone to allow calls from "everyone" while "do not disturb" is activated.

Questions:
  1. I've read that mirroring must be toggled on for "do not disturb" to work on the watch. Is that correct? I'd prefer to customize how apps act on the phone vs the watch, for example getting a haptic notification during the day on my watch when I've turned off the sound on my phone.
  2. Does it matter if I activate "do not disturb" from the watch or the phone?
I know that I could just try this, but I've been trying various things for a while now. I'm clearly not doing it right, because my sleep has been getting disturbed regularly for days now, and I'm tired! :p Hoping you all can put me on the right track.

Thanks!
 
annk said:
The more I read about the "do not disturb" function, the more confused I get. Here's what I'm trying to do:
  1. Allow apps to notify me on my S4 AW with sounds and/or haptics, depending on my preferences.
  2. Silence those notifications when I'm asleep (I wear the watch at night for sleep monitoring with AutoSleep). I assume I can use "do not disturb" for this.
  3. Allow all calls to come through on my phone, day or night.

What I've done:

Set my phone to allow calls from "everyone" while "do not disturb" is activated.

Questions:
  1. I've read that mirroring must be toggled on for "do not disturb" to work on the watch. Is that correct? I'd prefer to customize how apps act on the phone vs the watch, for example getting a haptic notification during the day on my watch when I've turned off the sound on my phone.
  2. Does it matter if I activate "do not disturb" from the watch or the phone?
I know that I could just try this, but I've been trying various things for a while now. I'm clearly not doing it right, because my sleep has been getting disturbed regularly for days now, and I'm tired! :p Hoping you all can put me on the right track.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Turn on automatic DND on your phone. Set the time you'd like. Mirror it to the watch. Silence the sound on the watch if you want haptic only.
Beware though, when you allow all calls to come through it will come on the watch as well. Bad idea if you don't want to be disturbed at sleeping time. It defeats the purpose of DND IMO.
 
It sounds to me like the OP would actually be better served by NOT mirroring DND on the watch, setting it manually instead, each night (it's not possible to set a watch-only DND schedule yet, even on watchOS 6) ... That way, the phone would continue to receive/ring for calls all night, but the watch wouldn't.

The silent mode toggle on the iPhone isn't mirrored to the watch, in any case, so there's currently no way for the watch to enable/disable haptics or silent mode (for example) depending on the iPhone's silent mode state.
 
mavis said:
The silent mode toggle on the iPhone isn't mirrored to the watch, in any case, so there's currently no way for the watch to enable/disable haptics or silent mode (for example) depending on the iPhone's silent mode state.
Click to expand...

That’s easy. Like I said, just turn on Silent Mode on the watch and it will be Taptic only. OP can leave the phone to rang or even switch on silent button there as well if he so choose.
 
matrix07 said:
That’s easy. Like I said, just turn on Silent Mode on the watch and it will be Taptic only. OP can leave the phone to rang or even switch on silent button there as well if he so choose.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think she gets that - I was actually replying specifically to the comment "I'd prefer to customize how apps act on the phone vs the watch, for example getting a haptic notification during the day on my watch when I've turned off the sound on my phone." Maybe I misunderstood, but it sounded like she was saying that she'd like some kind of mirroring between the phone and watch, for silent mode settings (which can't be done).
 
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Thanks guys.

matrix07 said:
Turn on automatic DND on your phone. Set the time you'd like. Mirror it to the watch. Silence the sound on the watch if you want haptic only.
Click to expand...

I don't want to set a specific time for DND to kick in, because I don't go to bed at the same time each night. And I don't want any sound or haptic notifications on the watch during the night, but I do want anyone to be able to reach me by phone (call) during the night.

Beware though, when you allow all calls to come through it will come on the watch as well. Bad idea if you don't want to be disturbed at sleeping time. It defeats the purpose of DND IMO.
Click to expand...

My situation is that while I don't want notifications on my watch to wake me up at night, I do want to allow people to call me at any time.

mavis said:
It sounds to me like the OP would actually be better served by NOT mirroring DND on the watch, setting it manually instead, each night (it's not possible to set a watch-only DND schedule yet, even on watchOS 6) ... That way, the phone would continue to receive/ring for calls all night, but the watch wouldn't.
Click to expand...

Do you mean that if I activate DND on my watch, the phone will still ring, but the sound/haptic notifications I've set for the watch will be silenced? And I don't need to activate DND on the phone? That would be perfect, and very easy!

mavis said:
Yeah, I think she gets that - I was actually replying specifically to the comment "I'd prefer to customize how apps act on the phone vs the watch, for example getting a haptic notification during the day on my watch when I've turned off the sound on my phone." Maybe I misunderstood, but it sounded like she was saying that she'd like some kind of mirroring between the phone and watch, for silent mode settings (which can't be done).
Click to expand...

I think I get what you're saying - that if I have sounds activated on my watch, they will continue to sound even if the phone is put on silent. I think the best thing would be for me to :

  • Change all my watch notifications to haptic only
  • Activate DND on my watch each night
  • Not have any sound or haptic notifications set on my phone
That way:
  • I can toggle silent mode on my phone on and off during the day when I'm with a client, but still be made aware of notifications via haptic on my watch.
  • People will be able to reach me during the night by phone but my watch won't wake me up with haptic notifications at night.
Have I understood?
 
annk said:
  • I can toggle silent mode on my phone on and off during the day when I'm with a client, but still be made aware of notifications via haptic on my watch.
  • People will be able to reach me during the night by phone but my watch won't wake me up with haptic notifications at night.
Click to expand...

How will you achieve that when these two things are contradictory? Either you have haptic (all day and night), or you don't. The haptic will wake you up if you have phone call because you set anyone to reach you in DND mode and anyone will.

This is exactly what DND mode is for, to prevent someone calling you at night but now you'll allow it.
 
Last edited:
matrix07 said:
How will you achieve that when these two things are contradictory? Either you have haptic (all day and night), or you don't. The haptic will wake you up if you have phone call because you set anyone to reach you in DND mode and anyone will.

This is exactly what DND mode is for, to prevent someone calling you at night but now you'll allow it.
Click to expand...

They aren't contradictory - the first one is during the day (when I'm not in danger of being waked up), the second is at night.

My situation is that I do want haptic notifications during the day, even when I turn the sound off on my phone. At night I don't want any haptics to wake me up until my alarm goes off in the morning, but I do want anyone to be able to get hold of me by phone.

I was hoping that this was possible by customizing DND to allow all calls but mute all haptics, and turning it on on the watch when I go to bed.

Sorry if I'm not being clear.
 
Ok, so you don’t mind haptic on the watch waking you when there’s a call in the middle of the night then, because if you don’t want haptic on the watch to wake you on phone call it wouldn’t alert you for phone call during the day too unless you manually switching every day. Am I making sense? :(
 
matrix07 said:
Ok, so you don’t mind haptic on the watch waking you when there’s a call in the middle of the night then, because if you don’t want haptic on the watch to wake you on phone call it wouldn’t alert you for phone call during the day too unless you manually switching every day. Am I making sense? :(
Click to expand...

The first part of your sentence makes sense to me:

"Ok, so you don’t mind haptic on the watch waking you when there’s a call in the middle of the night then"

That bit is exactly right. I want to be available 24/7 for phone calls. I do not however want notifications from Facebook, Gmail etc to wake me up.

I'll try to be clearer about what I want:
  • Haptic and/or sound alerts (depending on how I have each app set up) on my watch during the day when my phone sound is on.
  • Haptic alerts only on my watch during the day when my phone sound is off.
  • No haptics for anything except phone at night.
Sound notifications for calls at night, on either the watch, phone, or both, would be fine in addition to the haptic response, but the haptic would be enough to wake me up.
 
annk said:
The first part of your sentence makes sense to me:

"Ok, so you don’t mind haptic on the watch waking you when there’s a call in the middle of the night then"

That bit is exactly right. I want to be available 24/7 for phone calls. I do not however want notifications from Facebook, Gmail etc to wake me up.
Click to expand...

Ah, gotcha. That’s possible and easy to setup. One issue solved I guess.
 
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annk said:
Great, so you think what I wrote in post number 6 is the way to go?
Click to expand...

Exactly. You can makes it simpler by setting DND on iPhone and mirror it to the watch so you have one place to edit it when you choose.

To recap.
1. Set automatic DND if you want it to trigger at the same time each night so you don’t have to do it manually. (If you want to do it manually. Be your guest :p)
2. Silent Mode on the watch
3. Disable Vibrate on Ring and Vibrate on Silent on iPhone
4. Switch on Silent button on iPhone.

Voila!
 
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