When I was a kid, nothing beat lying in bed listening to rain on the roof. The rest of the house was always too loud: the TV humming, pipes creaking, the washing machine running a floor away. But when it rained, all of that got folded into one steady sound, and I could finally relax.

I wrote about that in The Volume Knob Is Broken. What I didn't have back then was a way to take the rain with me. It turns out I've had one in my pocket this whole time.

Why over-ear headphones

I've tried in-ear headphones, and they don't work for me. With them in, I can hear my own body: my jaw moving, my footsteps, even the bones in my face as I chew or talk. There's a name for this, the occlusion effect. Sealing off the ear canal makes sounds that travel through your own skull louder. For someone whose volume knob is already broken, that's the last thing I need.

Over-ear headphones avoid that. I use a pair of AirPods Max, which sit around my ears instead of in them, so the pressure and the self-noise are mostly gone.

The combination that works

What works best for me is two settings used together:

  1. Active Noise Cancellation lowers the constant background drone: the fridge, the buzzing lights, the fan that ticks just unevenly enough to bother me.
  2. Background Sounds set to Rain fills the quiet that's left with something steady and predictable.

Either one on its own helps. Together, they come close to the kid-in-bed-listening-to-the-storm feeling, wherever I happen to be.

How to set it up

Background Sounds is built into iOS. It's an iPhone setting, not a headphone feature, so it plays through any headphones or speaker. Noise cancellation depends on the headphones you have.

Turn on Background Sounds

  • Go to Settings → Accessibility → Audio & Visual → Background Sounds.
  • Turn it on and choose Rain. There are other options too, like ocean, stream and a few kinds of noise.
  • Use the slider to set the volume. I keep mine low enough that it sits in the background instead of on top of everything.

Add a quick toggle

  • Add Hearing to Control Center. On newer iOS versions, you edit Control Center by pressing and holding on it.
  • Now you can switch the rain on and off in a couple of taps without digging through menus.

Turn on Noise Cancellation

  • With your headphones connected, open Control Center, press and hold the volume slider, and tap Noise Control → Noise Cancellation. On AirPods Max, you can also use the noise control button on the headphones.

Sometimes, just silence

To be fair, some days I skip the rain. I turn on noise cancellation with nothing playing and let the world get quieter.

There's a side benefit I didn't expect: when I have headphones on, people tend to leave me alone. That used to feel a little rude. Now I see it as one more way of adjusting my environment instead of forcing myself to put up with it. It's the same idea from Disabled vs Disability: I still have the sensory differences, but with the right tools in place, they don't limit me nearly as much.

The volume knob is still broken. But now, at least, I can choose what's playing.