Turning off Sports updates on Apple Watch

[lkalliance]

Hey, all,

I have been trying to figure out how to turn off the watch notifications for the Sports app. I haven't figured out how to do this:

--On the Watch app on my iPhone, I do not see Sports listed among the apps to customize notifications.
--I also don't see it listed among the apps where I can mirror notifications from the phone.
--Though I see in several threads where I should be able to turn off Live Activities on the Watch via the Smart Stack setting, I am embarrassed to say I can't find the Smart Stack settings. When I search the settings the search results tell me it's under "Gestures", but I do not see it there.

It really only bothers me when I am watching live sports: the notifications get to me before the action on my screen gets there, giving me an unwelcome tip-off of something happening. Would love to be able to toggle the notifications on and off as the circumstances dictate. At the moment I'm literally just taking the Watch off while I'm watching sports on TV. That can't be the best option, can it?

Thanks for your guidance!

 

[jz0309]

Hey, all,

I have been trying to figure out how to turn off the watch notifications for the Sports app. I haven't figured out how to do this:

--On the Watch app on my iPhone, I do not see Sports listed among the apps to customize notifications.
--I also don't see it listed among the apps where I can mirror notifications from the phone.
--Though I see in several threads where I should be able to turn off Live Activities on the Watch via the Smart Stack setting, I am embarrassed to say I can't find the Smart Stack settings. When I search the settings the search results tell me it's under "Gestures", but I do not see it there.

It really only bothers me when I am watching live sports: the notifications get to me before the action on my screen gets there, giving me an unwelcome tip-off of something happening. Would love to be able to toggle the notifications on and off as the circumstances dictate. At the moment I'm literally just taking the Watch off while I'm watching sports on TV. That can't be the best option, can it?

Thanks for your guidance!

in the watch app on phone, on the very first screen, Smart Stack, turn allow live activities off

 

[lkalliance]

in the watch app on phone, on the very first screen, Smart Stack, turn allow live activities off

I do not have a Smart Stack setting on the first Watch app screen.

Some info on my setup:
—Watch is Series 5
—WatchOS is 10.6.2 (no updates available)
—iOS 26.3.1
—Apple Intelligence is turned off, if that makes a difference

 

[jz0309]

I do not have a Smart Stack setting on the first Watch app screen.

Some info on my setup:
—Watch is Series 5
—WatchOS is 10.6.2 (no updates available)
—iOS 26.3.1
—Apple Intelligence is turned off, if that makes a difference

I see, live activities on watch came with watchOS 11 ... not sure as I'm all on 26
do you have "mirror my iPhone" for notifications? maybe that's a way to tweak it?

 

[lkalliance]

I see, live activities on watch came with watchOS 11 ... not sure as I'm all on 26
do you have "mirror my iPhone" for notifications? maybe that's a way to tweak it?

I don’t [EDIT: that is, I don’t see a global one]…another thing I had expected to see that isn’t there. Under Notifications, each individual app on the Watch has a “Mirror iPhone alerts from” toggle. These have worked as expected for all the apps represented there; there just isn’t anything for “Sports” or “Live Activities” (which I don’t expect to see anyway based on your post) or “Smart Stack”.

There is a toggle to suppress system alerts under Sounds and Haptics. Do you think the Watch would consider Live Activities to be a “system alert?”

 

[lkalliance]

Idea: I’m going to try to use Theater Mode next time. I use it all the time at the movies to turn the screen off; I think it also turns off notifications (hopefully turns them completely off including haptics).

This has the advantage of being something that…

…is intended to be toggled on and off as needed, and…
…can be done directly on the Watch itself.

 

[doogm]

I do not have a Smart Stack setting on the first Watch app screen.

Some info on my setup:
—Watch is Series 5
—WatchOS is 10.6.2 (no updates available)
—iOS 26.3.1
—Apple Intelligence is turned off, if that makes a difference

Watch app (on the iPhone), Smart Stack - turn off "Allow Live Activities" there. (Or turn off "Auto-Launch Live Activities is you still want to see the scores in the smart stack but don't want the watch to show the score over the watch face - that's the way that I set mine up.)

It's also in the Settings app on the watch itself - Settings , Smart Stack, Live Activities, and then you can change one (or both) of those setting there.

 

[lkalliance]

Watch app (on the iPhone), Smart Stack - turn off "Allow Live Activities" there. (Or turn off "Auto-Launch Live Activities is you still want to see the scores in the smart stack but don't want the watch to show the score over the watch face - that's the way that I set mine up.)

It's also in the Settings app on the watch itself - Settings , Smart Stack, Live Activities, and then you can change one (or both) of those setting there.

It’s not in either place: it turns out the WatchOS version doesn’t support Live Activites (and is the latest version possible on my Series 5 Watch).

Going to see if Theater Mode does the trick.

 

[jz0309]

It’s not in either place: it turns out the WatchOS version doesn’t support Live Activites (and is the latest version possible on my Series 5 Watch).

Going to see if Theater Mode does the trick.

Yea, watchOS 10 which you are using just doesn't know anything about live activities, so that's why there's not setting.
Theater mode should work and you said your iPhone is on 26, right? You might also be able to create a focus on your phone that disables notifications while live activities is active but I wouldn't know how.

 

[lkalliance]

Yea, watchOS 10 which you are using just doesn't know anything about live activities, so that's why there's not setting.
Theater mode should work and you said your iPhone is on 26, right? You might also be able to create a focus on your phone that disables notifications while live activities is active but I wouldn't know how.

Going to try theater mode today: I should get baseball notifications in today’s game, will play around with it.

Doing a special focus would be an interesting idea. I’m not sure it accommodates it, but I haven’t looked closely enough. Feels to me like Thester Mode is more direct anyway in this case: I use it when I go to the movies so the muscle memory is there.

Interesting thing I found: putting the Watch in Do Not Disturb using its own control puts the phone there too. No such paired setting as far as I can see with Theater Mode.

 

[jz0309]

Yea, there is very little doubt in my mind that theater mode will work for you, just have to remember to activate/de-activate.
A quick look at focus and to "silence" an app, the Sports app is not listed, so I have no idea, might be a new thread in the iPhone section to pursue that idea

 

[lkalliance]

Well...it didn't work this afternoon. My local baseball team was playing, marked as a favorite in the Sports app. I waited for the first alert to come in and it did on the Watch as expected. Went into theater mode and...they kept coming in. Next test is something more clumsy: turn off the tracking on the specific game and see what happens then. Should turn off its tracking on both the Watch and the iPhone, and then in theory I can turn it back on.

This all became in issue, BTW, watching my home team in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Sitting and watching live, but the stream was just a few seconds behind the alerts. So when a goal was scored I already knew it was coming, which is a lesser experience.