When you’re jamming out to your favorite beats using a nice pair of wired earbuds or headphones, it’s tempting to crank up the volume as high as possible so you can fully immerse yourself in the music. But if you listen to music at excessively high volumes for prolonged periods of time, eventually, you might irreversibly damage your hearing. That’s why experts recommend limiting your exposure to loud noises. Android has long had a safety feature that warns you when you try to raise the media volume above a safe limit, but this warning can be easily ignored. Android 14 will be more proactive in protecting your hearing with its new headphone loud sound alert feature.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Android devices sold in the EU display a warning when headphones are connected and the user tries to raise the output volume level above 85 dB. You can accept the warning and increase the output volume level to a maximum of 100 dB, but the warning will reappear after 20 hours of music playback to remind you of the potential danger to your hearing.

The European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) adopted the IEC 62368-1 safety standard for audio/video devices sold in the EU. Android’s safe media volume warning follows the recommendations outlined in this document, which has undergone multiple revisions over the years. The most recent was adopted earlier this year, so in order to keep up with the latest recommendations, Google is adding a new safety feature in Android 14 that warns you when you’ve been listening to music at unsafe volume levels for too long.

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