Background Noise Masking on iOS 15 Phone Calls

iOS 15 includes a built-in accessibility feature called Background Sounds, designed to mask unwanted environmental noise and minimize distractions. This article explains how the background noise masking feature operates during active phone calls, how the audio is balanced, and how to configure the settings to ensure phone conversations remain clear without interrupting the masking audio.

How Background Sounds Function During Active Calls

When enabled, Background Sounds plays ambient audio—such as rain, ocean waves, streams, or balanced, bright, and dark noise—directly through your device's speaker, earpiece, or connected headphones. During an active phone call, iOS 15 treats the masking sound as secondary audio.

The system blends the ambient sound with the incoming call audio locally on your device. Crucially, this audio is only routed to your output; the person on the other end of the line cannot hear the background sound because it is not fed into the microphone input. This allows you to benefit from focus-enhancing or calming noise without disrupting the other caller.

Enabling Masking During Phone Calls

To allow background noise to continue playing while on a phone call, a specific toggle within the Accessibility settings must be active:

  1. Open Settings on your iPhone running iOS 15.
  2. Navigate to Accessibility > Audio/Visual > Background Sounds.
  3. Turn on the Background Sounds toggle.
  4. Ensure the Use When Media Is Playing option is enabled.

Because iOS categorizes live call audio under active media playback, disabling this setting will automatically pause the background noise as soon as a call connects and resume it once the call ends.

Managing Relative Volume

To prevent the ambient noise from drowning out the caller, iOS 15 provides separate volume controls. Under the Background Sounds settings menu, the Volume With Media slider dictates the loudness of the background sound specifically when calls or media are active. Lowering this slider ensures that the caller's voice remains the dominant audio track while still providing subtle noise masking in the background.

Quick Adjustments via Control Center

You can manage the feature during a call without opening the Settings app by using the Control Center:

  1. Add the Hearing control to Control Center via Settings > Control Center.
  2. Swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen during a call.
  3. Tap the Hearing icon (represented by an ear) to toggle Background Sounds on or off, switch sound types, or adjust the masking volume in real time.