Power consumption - Power off / Deep Standby Request

  • 14 January 2024
  • 39 replies
  • 455 views
F
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Hi, I saw year old threads, with this topic. All have been closed. I’d like to bring it up again with a couple of questions and requests for discussion.

I have two sites with Sonos speakers for serveral years. Extended over time, it’s a total of 24 speakers now. Given the rising energy prices (announcement from provider: 0,45 € cents with next increase), idle power consumption becomes more and more an issue. Play 1 consumes 3 W. Sub, Playbar and some older Play 5 considerably more. It sums up:

3W * 24h * 365days = 26,2 kWh * 24 speakers = 630 kWh * € 0.45 = € 280/year.

Just for keeping them in standby. I could buy a Play 1 per year for these totally unnecessary costs.

 

My workaround: I power them all off with Wifi-Plugs (0,5 W each). Power on/off with some smart home event. One plug controls several speakers in a room, so power consumption is considerably less. When powered on, an IFTTT applet sets volume, groups speakers and plays a favorite. (With a 2 min delay for booting).

Question: Any downsides for the hardware being powered on/off on a regular basis?

I suppose, this is a use case for many users. Why is it so hard for SONOS to provide some optional “Deep Standby” after all those years. No one really cares for a 2 minute booting delay, if it’s optional. SONOS MOVE, provides that anyway. It can be configured to power off in battery mode and idle state after a while.

This IFTTT-approach hasn’t been very reliable recently. I wish, SONOS could at least memorize the recent “power-on” state. When powerd off/on... it may just set volume/grouping/playlist by itself. Behaviour just like pausing, just allow some delay for booting. Would eliminate a lot of hassle.

Any comments on that? Thanks!

Andi

 

 

 

 

 

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39 replies

buzz

If a unit, perhaps the guest room has been powered down for a while, it will likely need to be updated when powered up.

F
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

@buzz. For sure it has implications, just looks easy from my simple user perspective. Maybe worthwhile a consideration. As said, I solved it for me with IFTTT which is not working too well unfortunately. I thought about a raspberry PI with home automation. Supposed to work well with Sonos, but It’s another “permanent-on” device while I’m trying to minimize consumption.

melvimbe

@106rallyethanks 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.

 

@craigskiEra 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.

 

Era 300 is not really a replacement for the Five, as the Five is considered to be the superior speaker of stereo or mono sources. This is why Sonos no longer sells the Sonos One, but does still sell the Five.

Danny
F
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

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

buzz

@buzz. For sure it has implications, just looks easy from my simple user perspective. Maybe worthwhile a consideration. As said, I solved it for me with IFTTT which is not working too well unfortunately. I thought about a raspberry PI with home automation. Supposed to work well with Sonos, but It’s another “permanent-on” device while I’m trying to minimize consumption.

Sure, as you add more management devices that consume power, you need to consider the overall payback. Specifically with the PI, maybe it doesn’t need to be always ON. You might only need it to make configuration changes. It might require some physical work, but controlling power relays wired to a central point (the PI) would probably reduce total power requirements vs distributed smart switches. Lookup “latching relay’.

 

buzz

Overall we need better environmental accounting data for everything. There are environmental costs for all products from mining the ore, manufacturing, distribution to the user, use during the product’s life, then final disposal. Currently, it is almost impossible to make intelligent choices.

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

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.

C
Userlevel 6
Badge +11

Overall we need better environmental accounting data for everything. There are environmental costs for all products from mining the ore, manufacturing, distribution to the user, use during the product’s life, then final disposal. Currently, it is almost impossible to make intelligent choices.

Agree,  the ‘product’ is more than the physical device. A ‘smart’ interconnected device (eg Sonos speaker) will consume power when idle in the home, that can be measured and quoted in specification. But what about the power consumed on the home network infrastructure (routers, WiFi, etc) to support that device, and then the ISP/Mobile network, Internet, and data centres that are providing the ‘service(s)’ that device uses.

So a smart device is quoted as using 1w when idle, that is just the energy consumed on the device itself, not the total energy consumed.

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

 

F
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

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
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

 

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)

 

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

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.

 

https://infogalactic.com/info/Wake-on-LAN#Hardware_requirements

Hardware requirements:
Wake-on-LAN support is implemented on the motherboard of a computer and the network interface (firmware), and is consequently not dependent on the operating system running on the hardware. Some operating systems can control Wake-on-LAN behaviour via NIC drivers. With older motherboards, if the network interface is a plug-in card rather than being integrated into the motherboard, the card may need to be connected to the motherboard by an additional cable. 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.

 

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.

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
F
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

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?

 

controlav
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

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?

 

There are multiple forms of “magic packet”. Whether some/any of these pass through gateways/routers/switches seems random. I have worked on WOL code in the real world, it is a terrible protocol, and when it fails to work (which is often) there’s no way to figure out why, and it’s success rate is heavily local topology specific.

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

I’ve not used WOL and from reading this I think I’ll pass on it.

Raspberry Pi are addictive little beasts, I have several, doing things that could well be combined but I like the simplicity of one PI, one function.

 

 

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