What is Auto Speak on Apple Watch?

By allabtech, 20 March, 2025

Forum
watchOS and Apple Watch Apps

Hi all,

So whenever you have the rotor tet to Actions and when you swipe up, VoiceOver sometimes says Enable Auto Speak. What is that feature?

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Comments

By Levi Gobin on Thursday, March 20, 2025 - 01:23

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

When auto speak is turned on, VoiceOver will read the contents of the complication along with the time when you wake your Apple Watch.
For example, if you enable auto speak for a Weather complication and a battery complication, voiceover would say something similar to:
9:41 AM. 67°. 75% battery.
If you wish to change the order that they are spoken in, you should be able to disable and enable auto speak in the order That you want them to be spoken.
For example, if you have a weather complication a stock complication and a sleep tracker complication, but you wanted your stocks to be read first, you would enable auto speak for the stocks complication, and then enable auto speak on the weather Complication.

By TheBlindGuy07 on Thursday, March 20, 2025 - 15:23

This is the most underrated best feature of VoiceOver on the watch. I don't use it at all but am very happy that it's there the day I need it.

By Mlth on Thursday, March 20, 2025 - 15:23

I love this feature as well! You can also set it on a per-watchface basis, so it will autospeak my alarm and battery complication in my face for the night, but speak my timer complication on my other watchface

By Khomus on Friday, March 21, 2025 - 03:23

I enabled autospeak for battery percentage. If I raise my wrist, nothing happens. If I touch the screen, I just get whatever I've touched. So absolutely nothing is autospeakking anything. I mean to be fair, I probably don't want it speaking every time I move my arm, but still.

By allabtech on Friday, March 21, 2025 - 03:23

Sorry to say that you're doing it wrong. That's not how it works.

Instead, you press the Digital Crown on the Apple Watch. Or the side button, the button you use to open Control Center.

By Khomus on Friday, March 21, 2025 - 07:23

Pressing the crown takes me to apps, and pressing the side button opens control center, just like it always does. Weirdness! It's not something that's broken on the SE is it?

By Mlth on Friday, March 21, 2025 - 09:23

It only works when the watch screen transitions from off to on. So for example if you press the crown when the screen is in an off, but not locked, state.

To replicate this you could put your palm over the watch to turn off the screen, then press the crown, just to see how it works.

By Holger Fiallo on Friday, March 21, 2025 - 10:23

Works when you are on the face complication or unlock watch. Did this for a long time. Like and agree is a nice feature that does not get much appreciation.

By Khomus on Friday, March 21, 2025 - 19:23

Thanks! So if I put my hand over the screen, or don't move my arm, it does indeed work. So maybe I need to try turning off wake on wrist raise, to make it more usable. But at least I know what it's supposed to be doing now. I knew I was doing something or other wrong!

By peter on Saturday, March 22, 2025 - 17:23

I have mixed feelings about the wake on wrist raise feature/settings.

What I dislike about it is that Voiceover frequently starts speaking at odd times like when I lift my arm to put it on the table during meals, or when I raise my arm to guide myself along a wall, etc, or when I'm exercising, etc. For all of those situations I would like that not to happen since Voiceover speaking is not necesssary and attracts attention from or distracts people around me.

On the other hand, I find that with the wake on wrist raise feature turned off, I can't just raise my arm and speak to Siri to get a response or run an action. Would be nice if the watch just listened when off just as the phone does. But apparently the watch will not listen unless it is woken up.

Is there any way around this?

Thanks for any suggestions.

--Pete