Extended Stand-By for Sonos

Hi,

I know energy is not a big topic in the US, because energy is cheap and wasted everywhere, but it is in Germany and other parts of the world. Avg spend for energy for two people in an appartment in Germany is usually anything bewteen 50 and 100 Eur/Month (energy prices are 0.25-0,30cents (EUR) per kw/h.

I my setup (Playbar, 3x Play1, 2x Play3 and one Bridge) is roughly around 40kw/h on stand-by. So im spending around 90 EUR per year just for sonos stand-by. When I see that Amazon Echo dots uses 1.5W and play1 4W it feels like it could be less. Echo Dot is also always on, its always connected to wifi and keeps listening and waiting 24H/day.

Some people might say "ok....Sonos is supposed to be like that..live with it..it has to be on and available all the time". I know many people using Sonos, most of them unplug them or use switches at the power plug. Why? Because all rooms are not always needed. I use one e.g. in sleeping room (because my GF lives abroad) and another one in bathroom (usually only use it when taking a bath)....Lets summarize....it makes sense to discuss about energy and some tweaks or updates on the software.

What could you do?

- Offer extended stand-by as an option...Keep wifi on, switch off other components by software so that energy level is around anything up to 2W...I still dont understand why stand-by of playbar is much more than play1 🙂 Then maybe it takes 20 sec for the speaker to be fully available...

- Offer some kind of check if even an app is connected. If there is no sonos app connected (because noone is home), just keep one device active and switch off the other ones. This would be really what we call "smart home". Offer in the app which device should be the one be available all the time.

I am sure something is possible 🙂 The costs for stand-by are currently my main reason not to buy 2 or 3 more play1....just saying 🙂

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-Keep wifi on, switch off other components by software

As far as I know, this is exactly what is done. And the power used for keeping WiFi not only on but also in periodic and necessary communication with other Sonos units is what drives the power consumption when not in use. Which is also less in newer models.

What I do for units used less frequently than daily is leave them turned off at the mains sockets.

Thanks. So solution would be to offer something like extended standby 🙂 it is not needed for some speakers to instantly react, but maybe after 20 or 30 seconds. And those periodic checks are definetly useless when noone is home for 12 hours or even days....

Im just saying because standby drain is a big topic in some markets...And since I have read that Echo DOT has 1.5W although its even listening all the time....Play One standby is now even higher than play1....:-(

The Echos are not doing any transmitting in listening/stand by mode, that is where Sonos units are different.

The simple way to deal with this if away from home for days is to turn off the mains power to them. Indeed many people do this for many more appliances, not just Sonos kit. For safety as well as energy saving.

What makes one think energy is not a big topic in the US? Seems like a completely unnecessary dig to start off a post. Isn't Leonardo DiCaprio an American? 😃

I have a par of Dynaudio xd 20 speakers and they a 0,5wat in sleepmode, i think Heo from Dennon is about the same.

It was not my intention to offend anyone with my statement about the US. It was just to explain because Sonos is a US company and they ignore power consumption for years. There are many devices that do much better and actually its hindering many people to buy more speakers 🙂 And yes, the avg American uses twice as much energy as e.g. the avg German. But anyways, Im ok if you call me Fritz and yes, I do eat Bratwurst and Sauerkraut, at least every second day :-)

Its just a pity that it is not a big topic in the English boards...because in the German community and all the Sonos users I know this is quite a big topic.

As I said...what do we do? We plug them out and plug them back in...or we use Bluetooth poweroutlets that switch off when we (and our Bluetooth) leave the house...:-)

There are many devices that do much better

Which ones, that offer all the features that Sonos does? Question out of genuine curiosity...

Just to get my post straight. I didn't mean to offend anyone with my comments about energy in US. It was just my impression that in the European Sonos boards it seems to be a much bigger topic. So I am sorry for that.

Back to real topic:

- As mentioned the Echo dot consumes much less than Sonos. It was mentioned that Echo Dot does no transmitting in Stand By (and Sonos does). Why does Sonos need to transmit anything in Stand By?

- Why isn't it possible to have something like an extended standby, e.g. that they need 30 sec to be on and/or register again?

- Why does a Playbar consumes 3x-4x the energy in standby than a Play1? I'm sure because of the more powerful hardware, but still from customer experience hard to explain.

- Even though hard to compare...my NAS has 3 harddiscs and is constantly on and available. I can access my NAS from anywhere in the world at any time. Standby is around 3.5W incl. the 3 harddiscs inside (which are in standby as well when not being used).

For the moment I have "solved" it with either switchable adapters (either via switch or remote controlled).

As mentioned the Echo dot consumes much less than Sonos. It was mentioned that Echo Dot does no transmitting in Stand By (and Sonos does). Why does Sonos need to transmit anything in Stand By?

In BOOST mode every zone player acts as a wifi node for other connected zone players (as well as proprietary controllers). In wifi mode every zone player awaits commands through the connected wireless network. In both modes zone players need to be up and running in order to accept any commands sent via the network.

- Why isn't it possible to have something like an extended standby, e.g. that they need 30 sec to be on and/or register again?

Because it's a computer and for it to react to external input it obviously needs to be powered up and ready to accept external commands. What you are referring to has been standardized under the Wake On LAN specification ... which itself requires an ethernet connection, hence breaking the entire concept of wifi speakers.

- Why does a Playbar consumes 3x-4x the energy in standby than a Play1? I'm sure because of the more powerful hardware, but still from customer experience hard to explain.

Components. Why does my gaming pc consume way more energy than my MacBook?

- Even though hard to compare...my NAS has 3 harddiscs and is constantly on and available. I can access my NAS from anywhere in the world at any time. Standby is around 3.5W incl. the 3 harddiscs inside (which are in standby as well when not being used).

See point above. Apples and oranges. :8

What you are referring to has been standardized under the Wake On LAN specification ... which itself requires an ethernet connection, hence breaking the entire concept of wifi speakers.In fact there's a Wake on Wireless LAN specification, but it's not widely supported.

Yeah well, with the SMB issue still not being resolved I just didn't want to include any of the even more exotic standards in my argument.;)

Denon e.g. has almost the same standby consumption for different devices, no matter how powerful/different hardware they are...And it can be automatically switched to deep standby with 0.1W until one of the buttons is pressed on the devices. Its just odd that sonos customers keep using switches or unplugging to save energy....

I would love to have some kind of deep standby setting in the app, that certain devices switch off from standby to deep standby after a certain time (e.g. 30 min, 0.1W) and they simply can be switched back on by pressing one of the buttons (this is how Denon is doing good).

HEOS Standby InstantOn

HEOS 1: 4.5 Watt

HEOS 3: 4 Watt

HEOS 5: 4 Watt

HEOS 7: 4 - 4,5 Watt

HEOS HOME CINEMA: 5 Watt

HEOS Bar: 5 Watt

HEOS AVR: 5 Watt

HEOS AMP: 4,5 Watt

HEOS Link: 4 Watt

HEOS Subwoofer: 4,5 Watt

I'm confused. How is Denon "doing good" when all of their units consume as much or more than every new generation Sonos device (with the exception of the Beam, which consumes "up to" 0.5 W more)?

Sonos Product 230V (EU)

Play:1 3.8 Watts

One (Microphone on) up to 4.1 Watts

PLAY:5 (gen2) 2.2 Watts

Beam (Microphone on) up to 5.5 Watts

Playbase 3.0 Watts

All other Sonos devices were designed long before the Denon HEOS.

While I'm certainly supportive of keeping the power envelope for Sonos devices as low as possible, folks worrying about this level of energy usage should make sure they NEVER travel anywhere unless it's on foot or by bicycle. All forms of motorised transport make this level of energy usage utterly inconsequential by comparison. Even a Tesla has a ~85KWh battery pack.

Argument was basically about the playbar and also your argument that of course more powerful devices need more power in standby. But I have to admit after checking google, that standby of Playbar is lower than I previously thought (its only around 6W, my bad).

My main question/request was always about some kind of deep standby, as Denon is e.g. offering it. There are buttons on the Sonos, so it should be at least worth to discuss to add some deep standby (e.g. after some time which can be set up in the app) and/or switch off/on by pressing buttons.

Maybe it is at the end about different parts of the world. I e.g. pay 600 EUR per year (house hold 2 people) for energy so Sonos standby costs are 1/6 of my costs. As I said, in the European Sonos communities this topic is much bigger...

But I do understand that Sonos got better with new products, which of course does not help those people who have already invested 2500EUR in Sonos speakers 🙂

[...] But I do understand that Sonos got better with new products, which of course does not help those people who have already invested 2500EUR in Sonos speakers :-)

Yawn... I have already invested about € 6000,-- in Sonos speakers, so what? Dump your old Sonos gear on ebay and swap them for DeepStandby HEOS Products.

Correction, that's "DeepStandby" HEOS Products that on average consume more power than "NonDeepStandby" Sonos products.

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