Apple Watch reminds parent that having kids can lead to hearing loss

Unsurprisingly, a crying child triggers Apple Watch environmental noise warnings when wailing hits 90 decibels.

The Apple Watch has a variety of health features and one lesser-known one is environmental noise monitoring. After being set up in the Noise app, the Apple Watch will alert the wearer if they are in danger of exceeding their daily recommended dose of loud noises.

One parent received the Loud Environment notification on their Apple Watch while near their crying child. The notification told them that exposure to sounds at 90 decibels or higher for 30 minutes in a day could lead to temporary hearing loss.

The Apple Health app describes 90 decibels as the equivalent of standing next to a running motorcycle. Of course, the parent didn't need any help from their wearable when determining if the baby was too loud.

Apple warns that exposure to this volume without hearing protection should be limited to only 4 hours per week. At least for now, iCloud notifications aren't compatible with babies.

Thanks to the increasing presence of technology like the Apple Watch, researchers are able to determine more about how modern humans live their lives and how society impacts their health. One Apple Watch-driven study showed that over 25% of participants were exposed to more loud environmental noises on average than the World Health Organization recommends.