Would like to silence notifications on phone while wearing Samsung Watch 4

[nrz]

Hi, I'd like to have all notification sounds silenced on my Galaxy S24 when I'm wearing my Galaxy Watch 4.  This worked perfectly on my old S9, but since moving to an S24, notifications oftentimes sound on the S24 in addition to showing up on the watch.

I would have thought enabling the setting in Galaxy Wearable app > Watch Settings > Notifications > Mute notifications on phone would be the solution for this issue, but unfortunately turning this setting on does not resolve the problem.  I've tried turning it off and back on again, but that still didn't help.

Please let me know if there's any way to work around this bug.  I'm on Android 15 and One UI 7.0.  Thanks!

[nrz]

My schedule is not regular enough to time it to certain hours, unfortunately.  If I could activate it by putting it on and taking it off the charger, that would be a perfect routine.  I haven't used routines before, so I'll have to look to see what all I can do with them.

[realaud]

Unfortunately the routines do not apply to the watch except as allowed as a connected device activator. Until such time as that happens (it's been requested many, many times, so who knows?), the only way you can make sure all notification sounds are off would be to manually turn on/off the mode.  At least automating the  process of changing the volume level is made easier by one tap, rather than pulling up the volume panel and then manually turning the volume up/down.  Seeing how a mode can be activated/deactivated from either the watch or the phone, this makes it easier should  you forget to do it.

I am confident that muting notifications on the phone is 100% effective (I don't have it on, because I want to hear my notifications at all times, since I have special ringtones set for important notifications).  When the watch is on the charger, I believe your notification sounds will return on the phone, as the notifications do not go to the watch when the watch is not on your wrist.  So the mode/routine would likely not be necessary anyway.

Getting notifications on the watch does not tell you which notifications are important,  as they all vibrate the same, so you have to look at the watch each time you get a notification (Arby's deals gets the same vibration as your wife texting you she's in labor), .  Something to think about.  Unless you have all your app and message notifications set to the same sound, getting a sound notification will tell you that you have one you need to look at.

[nrz]

I haven't had a chance to play with the routines yet, but I noticed that suddenly today everything appears to be working.  I set up this phone right before traveling, and while I was away I had the watch "Mobile networks" setting set to "Always off" so I wouldn't use international data for it.  It was still connected via Bluetooth to my phone and I was still getting notifications to the watch during this period (but also sound notifications to my phone, as mentioned in my initial post).

Now that I'm home and have switched "Mobile networks" back to "Auto", it appears to be working correctly, with notifications showing up on my phone and watch without a notification sound (just a buzz on my wrist as intended).

Having the notification setting tied to the mobile network activity makes no sense from a software design standpoint (the devices are already connected via Bluetooth and always about 2 feet apart), so it's definitely a bug if changing this setting indeed resolves it.  I'll give it a couple more days of testing because the problem may have only been intermittent before.

[nrz]

After a couple of days of the notifications suddenly working, I thought I'd switch the connection setting back to "Always off" so see if the problem returned.  It hasn't so far today, so now I'm really stumped on this issue.  I don't think I've changed any other setting.

The only difference I can think of now is that both devices are on the same wi-fi network instead of using a mobile network + Bluetooth.  I haven't even restarted the phone or watch, so I don't know why the setting has suddenly started working as intended.

I hate to mark an issue resolved that has no clear solution for others to follow...

[nrz]

I think I have figured out the actual issue now, which is still a bug.

When I'm wearing my watch, but my phone display is off (like when it's in my pocket), notifications are silenced as desired per the setting in the Galaxy Wearable app and just buzz my watch.

However, if I'm using my phone (display unlocked and screen on) while wearing my watch, notification sounds come through the phone even though I still have that disabled in the Galaxy Wearable app.  This is absolutely bonkers because that's the only scenario where someone wouldn't need any audible notification on the phone or even a watch vibration because the phone is already in use and the notifications visibly come through in real time.

So I think now I just need a way to silence notifications when the phone display is on to get it working the way it's supposed to per the verbiage in the Galaxy Wearable app.  I'll try to figure out a routine for that, unless someone knows of a better way to do it.

[nrz]

There doesn't appear to be an event for display on/off in Routines, so I'm not seeing any workaround for this bug.

[realaud]

You need to put in an error report.  As I told you earlier, I keep the notification sounds on because I like them, they don't bother me, and I am not usually in a place where the sounds would be obtrusive.  I also keep the notification volume low.  The routine won't work, but you can configure a mode for manual activation - put  widgets on your screen for quick deployment - you can add multiple single mode widgets and keep them separate or stack them. You would swipe the stacked widgets to switch between them.  You don't have to add the widgets, there's an icon in the quick panel for modes - the widgets eliminate the swipe.

Create two new modes - call them notification on and notification off.  When you are wearing your watch, you would activate the "notifications off" mode, and when you are not wearing your watch, you would activate the "notifications on" mode. Yes, it's not entirely automated, but will accomplish what you need without too much gymnastics.

[nrz]

Hi, @realaud, I have already reported the bug (Case #278501926), but I'm not hopeful that it will be resolved.  I've had my Watch 4 for over 3 years and still feel like I'm using beta software.  It's decent hardware, but Samsung/Google can't ever get the software right.  If they do end up fixing a bug, they break something else.

I'm not sure how a manual Routine would help me.  I would just mute/unmute the phone from the shade... scrolling down isn't that big of an effort.  It's remembering to mute/unmute in the first place that is the problem, and that would be my problem regardless of which method I used.

[realaud]

Muting/unmuting the sounds via the side buttons works, too. No need to get elaborate when the action can be accomplished easily enough with the volume button.

[nrz]

That worked on my older phones (not sure if it worked on my last Samsung phone or not), but doesn't work on my S24.  Or is there some trick I'm not aware of?  I used to just be able to press and hold the volume mode to toggle into vibrate mode (and maybe silent?).