Live Listen on iPhone With AirPods: Setup and Fixes

Add Live Listen to Control Center

Apple's Live Listen page for AirPods and Beats lists AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max and Beats models such as Powerbeats Pro and Beats Fit Pro. It asks for iOS or iPadOS 14.3 or later, and the earbuds have to be connected to the iPhone.

1. Connect your AirPods or Beats to the iPhone.
2. Open Control Center, tap the Add Controls button, then tap Add a Control.
3. Under Hearing Accessibility, tap Live Listen. The list has a search field if you can't spot it.
4. Close Control Center. The control is now there for next time.

Apple's own pages name this control differently. The page above puts Live Listen under Hearing Accessibility. The AirPods User Guide, which lists iOS 27 or iPadOS 27 or later, tells you to touch and hold in Control Center, tap Add a Control and pick Hearing. Search the list for either word. On older iOS versions, Apple's iPhone User Guide adds the same control from Settings → Control Center → Hearing.

Start it and place the iPhone

With the AirPods in your ears and connected, open Control Center and tap the Live Listen button. In the iOS 27 layout from the AirPods User Guide, you tap the Hearing Devices button first and then Live Listen. To stop, use the same control again.

Put the iPhone in front of the person you want to hear, then set the volume on your earbuds. The iPhone's microphone is what picks up the voice, so where the phone sits matters more than where you sit. Apple also says you can plug a wired external microphone into the Lightning port or the headphone jack.

There's a faster way in, too. Apple's iPhone User Guide describes triple-clicking the side button on an iPhone with Face ID, or the Home button on other models, then choosing Hearing Devices and Live Listen.

Made for iPhone hearing aids

Hearing aids don't need the Control Center control. Apple's page for Made for iPhone hearing devices has you connect the hearing aids first, then:

1. Go to Settings → Accessibility → Hearing Devices.
2. Tap your device's name under MFi Hearing Devices.
3. Tap Start Live Listen, and place the iPhone in front of the person you want to hear.

To stop, open the same screen and tap End Live Listen. If you add Live Listen to the Accessibility Shortcut, a triple-click starts and ends it. The same shortcut shows the battery level of your hearing devices and gives you volume and audio presets. If you haven't paired your hearing aids yet, see how to pair Made for iPhone hearing aids.

If Live Listen is greyed out or stops

Go through these in order.

1. A supported device has to be connected. Live Listen needs AirPods, a supported Beats model or Made for iPhone hearing aids. In an Apple Support Community thread, someone on an iPhone XR with iOS 18 saw Live Listen in Control Center but couldn't turn it on. The reply sent them to Apple's list of supported devices.
2. Bluetooth on, earbuds charged. This is the one troubleshooting line on Apple's AirPods and Beats page. Check Control Center's Bluetooth button, then put the AirPods in the case for a moment and check the charge.
3. Hearing aids: check the output. Apple says that if you don't see Live Listen, open Control Center and look at the device selection area of the playback controls. Your hearing device should be listed there. If another accessory shows instead, select it and choose your hearing device from the list that opens.
4. Try Settings. For hearing aids, Settings → Accessibility → Hearing Devices starts Live Listen without Control Center.
5. The control is missing. Add it again with the steps in the first section.
6. Your iOS version. The AirPods and Beats page asks for iOS 14.3 or later. The AirPods User Guide lists iOS 27 or later for its steps. Compare both against Settings → General → About.

AirPods Pro, AirPods Max and the Beats models in that list use the same steps as AirPods. If everything above looks right and Live Listen still won't start, Apple Support is the next stop.

When you need to read the conversation

Live Listen sends sound to your ears. Nothing appears on the screen, and it doesn't translate, so a loud room or an unfamiliar accent stays as hard to follow as it was, only louder.

For text, start with the captions your iPhone already has. Live captions on every device covers what each platform offers, and Apple Live Captions on iPhone: fixes helps if Apple's version won't turn on. If the speaker uses another language, Live Translation with AirPods covers that case.

For a talk in a noisy room, Vocena is another way to read along. It shows what the iPhone's microphone hears as live captions, and you can scroll back to a sentence you missed. Captions are free with no time limit. Vocena runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS or iPadOS 26 or later, and on a Mac with macOS 15.5 or later.