Power consumption - Power off / Deep Standby Request

  • 14 January 2024
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39 replies

F
Userlevel 2
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My spouse has refused to use our Sonos since her beloved CR-100s went away and has been quite resistant to me getting new Sonos toys ever since.

I can feel that. My parents have a smaller sonos due to Xmas presents and my recommendation. Especially my mom ist not touching the app. All she wants is pressing the button and her favorite radio channel in the kitchen and bathroom. Whenever there's some grouping or channel lost, one of the kids has to stop by and set it up. In fact, I think, there's room for improvement with usability. The app is not very intuitive for unexperienced users.

I have set up some IFTTT shortcuts on her phone, so she may at least switch channels without the app. It's not very satisfying, due to stability of the service. We can't even tech her Siri or Alexa. Parents couldn't handle additional hassle with smart plugs. It's permanently powered on.

 

To be fair: I think IFTTT is a great service for integrating all kind of things, even devices which are not directly amenable to home automation. Webhooks is fun and very flexible. Just the Sonos service has some glitches recently. Hope it’s a temporary issue. My impression is, that Sonos is not taking it very seriously, which is sad.

G
Userlevel 3
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For example, the Beam 2 has a Power Consumption While Idle of 6.3 watts.
And it is a constant power consumption all year round, 24 hours a day.
I will let people calculate for themselves what it costs annually, just to have a Beam 2 connected.
It is an insanely high idle power consumption and that is the reason why I have not bought this product.

F
Userlevel 2
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@106rallye thanks for the link. Below 2 Watts is an improvement. They are aware of that problem. obviously. I’d still consider to switch off a stereo pair e.g. in guest room or basement though, Certainly depends on frequency of use.

 

@craigski Era 100/300 replace former ONE and FIVE. I have a bunch of ONEs, I’ll probably want the latest toy at some point. As of now I’m still super happy though. I suspect you also didn’t throw your P1s on the trash. That’s what happend to my P1s a few years ago, I upgraded the systems upstairs, and found a spot for the P1s elsewhere. Still perfect stereo sound - no complaints - e.g. in the sauna. It’s not often used, makes no sense to leave them on standby.

What usually happens with a dumb switch, you go downstairs in a bathrobe, switch it on. But phone is upstairs. Waiting for booting, get your phone, play around with app and set it up is annoying.

I guess this is pretty common szenario for the users: You power up, and want it to play with recent setup after ~90 seconds of booting. I’d think, technically this should be well feasible with existing hardware.

F
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Makes sense. Era 300 is probably considered a successor of old Play 3.

F
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If you use the Pi Zero 2 you can see some amazingly low power numbers while still being quite functional.

https://blog.adafruit.com/2021/12/10/a-deep-dive-into-raspberry-pi-zero-2-ws-power-consumption-piday-raspberrypi-raspberry_pi/

Add a programmable controller board and cycling the PI’s power is possible too.

@buzz, @Stanley_4 Thank you for your hints. Others have recommended this to me. I’m reluctant yet because of time & efforts for me to learn and set it up. Love my Sonos, but it’s still just home entertainment and some more convenience. I would be looking for other possible uses.

F
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Edit: I found an interesting whitepaper, it discusses some of the above:

https://ctprodstorageaccountp.blob.core.windows.net/prod-drupal-files/documents/resource/public/Carbon-impact-of-video-streaming.pdf

Interesting. 1 hour of video streaming makes 55 g CO2. Worldwide Internet requires a huge amount of energy and resources. Still a lot is fossil. But it’s actually less then I thought, 1 km with an average Diesel car makes 130 g. (Just the fuel)

 

F
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Please Sonos do not rely on wake-on-lan, its a terrible “protocol”. See how well it works on the Roam. See how well it works on Xboxes for remote play. etc.

Just curious: Isn’t it just a convention for a specific magic packet. What do you think is the problem?

 

F
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@buzz, @Stanley_4 

Thanks for explaining, makes sense. My case is similar to buzz. Some rooms may remain off for days or weeks. Others are turned on more regularly, a few times a week. If they are needed again on the same day, power usually stays on. I guess no more then 300 on/off cycles per year. My very first Play 5 is 12 years old. Still works. So I'm rather concerned that it's no longer supported by S2. Before devices die of temperature issues, Sonos will probably retire the hardware.

I noticed that power consumption in standby is only slightly lower than in operation. Temperature will probably be fairly constant if you leave it plugged. I doubt though, that lifespan due to on/off is a concern for the Sonos ppl. Since battery speakers implement automatic power off (have to).

Most Sonos users I talked to, including you, have some kind of workaround for 'Power-Off'. Dumb Plug, Smart Plug... Considering high standby consumption, hassle for reconfigurating grouping/volume/playlist after power up, I think it's unworthy for the market leader's products. Lots of use cases obviously, but we have to live with such a crutch. Understand their point, they also want instant response. But it's not necessary in all situations. Why not make power-off (deep standby) an option with some more comfort, and leave it to the users. I guess there's no official answer, but I hope they consider some solution for the future.

 

F
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@buzz

Yes, of course. I don't blame Sonos for discarding older devices, there's no choice. This wasn't my point. Wanted to say that devices are robust. Concerns regarding durability with power on/off may be unfounded. My 12 year old 5 is still fine, heavily used. Before they may break, they have long since been retired anyway. However, I still use it in the garage with S1. It is in fact still supported, just no longer integrateble with newer devices in the house.

Regarding costs for extra Low Power Technology, Sonos is in a lucky situation yet, I guess. I'm not aware of a lot of capable competition who may force them. Sound quality, at the same time ease of use and multiroom integraton is still pretty unique. Idle consumption is not a major showstopper, while there are workarounds for those who use a calculator.

But as you said, EU may come up with new rules. All the systems out there is a lot of wasted energy.

F
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I’d really like to see an option for deep-sleep and far lower power consumption paired with something like Wake On LAN tech to revive the Sonos to active operation.

That would need a hardware redesign though, the Ethernet port and minimum supporting hardware would have to be moved to a separately powered circuit to see big power reductions.

...

Motherboards with an embedded Ethernet controller which supports Wake-on-LAN do not need a cable. The power supply must meet ATX 2.01 specifications.

 

Stanley_4, not sure if I understand. Wake on LAN by Wifi? I don’t think many users have LAN cabels for their SONOS speakers. There must be minimum power consumption to check for some Wifi Signal.

F
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It would work the same WiFi as wired, you have to have the receiving device, be it Ethernet or the radio, powered and listening for the magic packet.

Of course there is a minimum power draw, first from the required power supply to keep the necessary electronics awake, then the Ethernet port and radio receiver to acquire the packet and last the circuitry to recognize the packet and power up the rest of the electronics.

Looks to be working for folks other than Sonos.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000027615/intel-nuc.html

 

Makes sense, I would love that. But it won't redeem us veterans from the workaround with the smart/dumb plugs anyway. I don’t anticipate I will like to replace all my expensive sonos with new hardware anytime soon.

F
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I’d like to emphasize this one request again. Which may be feasible for existing hardware by some  minor changes in firmware architecture - idk:The use case of my parents:

Their sonos system is set up with grouped speakers and favorites for each room. To be operated with device’s pause-button. They (almost) never change it. When speakers are powered off (either on purpose by a switch to save energy, or by some kind of power outage), favorite channel and grouping is lost. You need the app in order to configure it again, which is annoying.

Why not save that setting and restore it after power up?

 

F
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Well, Sonos doesn’t support cutting the power to Sonos devices on a regular basis, so it’s hard to imagine that they would add a feature that encourages using the devices this way.  

I haven’t checked out the details recently, and could be misremembering, but Sonos has worked on lowering the standby power consumption in their more recent models.  I think this is how they chose to address the concern.

True. It may rather be a policy, not so much a technical issue. My guess, most users are not aware how much it costs them. Especially here with german energy prices. I think 1W idle consumption would make it unreasonable to power-off with some switch solution. Depends on particular use case of course.

F
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6.3 W is a lot. I have an older playbar, which consumes a little less. In most rooms we have pairs of ONEs or some older Play 1. 3W each, 6W per room. Far too much for doing nothing most of the time.

With rising energy prices here (€ 0.45), I roughly calculate 12 €/year for each 3 Watts-speaker. We have a collecion of 24. Everyone I talk to, powers-off with some kind of switch. If that’s not Sonos policy, they ignore reality of their users.

 

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