Good morning!
I work on a meditation app, and since Sleep Detection was introduced for AirPods in iOS 26, we've been receiving complaints from users reporting that their meditation sessions unexpectedly stop after approximately 15–20 minutes when Sleep Detection is enabled.
This seems to happen particularly during deep meditation sessions, where the user may remain still and exhibit behavior that could potentially be interpreted as falling asleep.
I've also tested this on iOS 27 with the latest beta firmware available for AirPods Pro, and the same behavior still occurs.
While investigating and debugging the issue, I found that there doesn't appear to be any public API that allows an app to determine that playback was paused specifically because of AirPods Sleep Detection. From the application's perspective, the AirPods appear to simply send a standard pause command to the AVPlayer, without providing any additional context or reason.
There also doesn't seem to be an API that allows us to determine whether the user has Sleep Detection enabled. Even having access to that information would allow us to warn users that their meditation session could potentially be interrupted.
AVAudioSession.InterruptionReason does not seem to help in this case either: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfaudio/avaudiosession/interruptionreason
Is there currently any supported way for an app to:
Detect that playback was paused specifically because of AirPods Sleep Detection? Determine whether Sleep Detection is enabled for the connected AirPods? Prevent Sleep Detection from pausing playback for specific apps or specific types of audio sessions?
If none of these are currently possible, could Apple consider providing either a notification/callback indicating that Sleep Detection triggered the pause, or an option for users to exclude specific apps from Sleep Detection?
This behavior is particularly problematic for meditation apps, since a user in a deep meditation session can easily be mistaken for someone who has fallen asleep. Other meditation apps appear to be affected by the same behavior as well.
Best regards, Carlos Antunes