PSA: Siri Can Turn on Night Shift on Apple Watch

[MacRumors]

The Apple Watch has a hidden feature for activating Night Shift on the device, a Reddit user discovered recently. If you ask Siri on the Apple Watch to turn on Night Shift, Siri will do so, and the display will take on the dimmer, yellow hue that lowers blue light exposure.

It is not clear how long Siri has been able to activate Night Shift on the Apple Watch, but it seems to be recent. Apple has no documentation on Night Shift on Apple Watch, and it was not previously a watchOS 10 option. It's possible Night Shift is tied to watchOS 11, but it is not limited to devices running watchOS 11. We were able to use the feature on an Apple Watch Series 9 with watchOS 10 installed.

Activating Night Shift can only be done through Siri, and there is no toggle in the Apple Watch Settings app or elsewhere on the device. Siri mentions scheduling Night Shift in the Settings app, but that's not an option at the current time in watchOS 10 or watchOS 11.

Night Shift does not appear to be available on all Apple Watch models, with Reddit users unable to activate it on a Series 5 and lower.

The option to suddenly turn on Night Shift without an accompanying setting suggests that it is a feature that has been accidentally introduced, and the toggle could be introduced in a future version of watchOS 11 or an upcoming watchOS 10 update.

Article Link: PSA: Siri Can Turn on Night Shift on Apple Watch

 

[mtnmac26]

worked on my series 7 w/watchOS 10, neat!

 

[RinkDinkus]

Confirming this works on an S8 on the latest version of WatchOS 10 as well. Strange setting to have manifested lmao

 

[twocents]

As a night owl, this is such a welcome change on my Ultra 2! It also shifts the flashlight to a warmer white tone

 

[Sigvard]

As a night owl, this is such a welcome change on my Ultra 2! It also shifts the flashlight to a warmer white tone

Good lord yes. Mine is so damn bright at night.

 

[ResolutionNZ]

Doesn't work on my Apple Watch SE 2.

 

[Crowbot]

Maybe they coded the function and just forgot to put it into Settings.

 

[contacos]

Happy to report that this works in the EU as well

 

[swingerofbirch]

Turned it on on my Series 7. Interesting look, like what a preview of the OLED will look like naturally in 10 years (?) time or so.

 

[ignatius345]

Doesn't work on my Apple Watch SE 2.

I got it to work on my SE 2 by saying "turn on Night Shift". Weirdly, it didn't work the first time -- it just replied "night night" (cute) and didn't do anything else. I did it again and it worked.

Not the first time I've had inconsistent results from the same command with Siri. My working theory is that requests can go to different servers, which may have slightly different programming? Honestly who the hell knows. I just hope it gets smarter at some point.

 

[ignatius345]

As a night owl, this is such a welcome change on my Ultra 2! It also shifts the flashlight to a warmer white tone

Never for a second understood why this is a feature only on the Ultra. It's very obviously possible to shift the color balance on a screen

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

Are people staring at a watch so much that they need this?

 

[NMBob]

What if I want to turn on Night Shift, the movie?

 

[ps3zocker]

In the end it‘s just a iOS branch. It‘s probably been in there a long time. I remember watchOS 1.0 had the iOS copy & paste menu when long pressing certain text elements.

 

[Robert.Walter]

S6. WOS 22.
iSE3. iOS 22.
Central Europe but USA based account.

Works for me.

Tried back and forth and status does not sync from phone to watch or v-v.

 

[sgreen314]

S6 w/9.6.3, Siri will turn on night shift. Honestly, it’s kind of hard to tell if it’s really doing anything. Lighting in my room is not the best though.

 

[Unami]

Doesn't seem to work in German.

 

[boss.king]

Not working on my Series 7 on watchOS 10. Maybe it’s a language/region locked thing?

 

[Starfia]

This should really benefit those of us who risk daytime fatigue by spending hours and hours on our watches.

 

[Lloigorr]

Not working on my 6 w/ watchOS10. I guess it’s a language thing as others have mentioned

 

[sleeptodream]

Are people staring at a watch so much that they need this?

Probably not but it always bugged me having my Apple watch be a different color temperature than my phone screen.

It’s like having soft white and daylight bulbs in the same room ***cringe***

 

[fbr$]

Siri is becoming smarter and now can bypass the system. Next step Siri will become self-aware. Then... you know...

 

[GrayFlannel]

😂 I hope no one’s lunch was interrupted to get out this breaking news. I heard Apple is considering charging a subscription for this amazing feature.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Siri is becoming smarter and now can bypass the system. Next step Siri will become self-aware. Then... you know...

Step 3 - ???
Step 4 - Profit!

 

[CarAnalogy]

This is fantastic, and also very weird.

Now I'm kind of nervous Apple will pull the plug and it will get stuck on.

This needs to sync with Night Shift on the phone for sure.