Do you know that your iPhone can function as a baby monitor, alerting you when your baby is crying?
With a bit of tweaking in the Shortcuts app, you can leave your iPhone with your baby and have it alert another device by sending a message. Here’s how to do it.
What You Need
You need your iPhone to be running at least iOS 14 to be able to create this shortcut. You also need another device, aside from the device you’ll use to trigger the shortcut. This second device will receive a message when your baby starts crying.
As a tip, you can use another iPhone or an iPad as the monitor and use it to send messages on your iPhone.
Introducing the Sound Recognition Function
Included in your iPhone’s Accessibility function is the ability to continuously listen to sounds in your environment and detect specific sounds. You can use this Sound Recognition function to detect:
Alarms: sirens, smoke alarms, or fire alarms Animal sounds: cat and dog Household sounds: appliances, car horn, doorbell, door knock, and water running People: baby crying, shouting, coughing
Turn on Speech Recognition by following these steps:
Go to Settings > Accessibility. Scroll down and tap Sound Recognition. Tap the toggle switch to turn Sound Recognition Tap Sounds and tap Baby Crying.
You can see if your iPhone’s Sound Recognition is turned on by checking the Control Center. You should see a button of a recording icon. You can pause Sound Recognition by tapping this button.
Automate a New Shortcut
Now that Sound Recognition is on, go to the Shortcuts app to make a new shortcut:
Tap the plus button (+) icon at the top right of the screen. Tap the ellipsis icon (…) to rename your shortcut. Tap Add Action. Search “sound recognition” in the search bar, then tap Set Recognized Sound. An action will appear that says Turn On sound recognizer for Fire Alarm as a default command. Tap Fire Alarm and change it to Baby Crying. Tap the plus icon (+). Add a Send Message action by searching for it in the search bar. Choose the person you want to send a message to when your baby cries. An action that says Send “Message” to [Contact Name] will appear. Tap “Message” to customize the message you want to send. You can also tap the plus icon (+) to add more recipients. Tap Show More, then disable the toggle switch beside the Show When Run to ensure that your phone will automatically send a message if it hears a crying baby.
Create Other Shortcuts
Aside from baby cries, you can make your iPhone alert you or other people in your house whenever it detects household sounds like water running, a knock on the door, or a car honk.
You can also mix and match shortcuts from various options available in the Shortcuts app, including making calls, appending notes, and taking photos. However, shortcuts may be tricky to set up at first and may require some trial and error.
Can Shortcuts Replace Your Baby Monitor?
This shortcut does its job in alerting you once it hears your baby cry. However, unlike actual baby monitors, it does not function as a radio that constantly provides you the sounds that your baby makes.
And while its sound recognition capabilities are relatively accurate, this feature should not be depended on or used in emergencies and high-risk situations.
