Simple ? - How to turn off

Thanks for the pedantry. Something to prove, I guess.
Exact UK utility figures are not the point of the exercise - it is about being responsible about the planet and energy consumption not about currencies of one sort or another. Interesting you assumed I lived in the UK. There is a world outside the UK.
The figures are Sonos figures. Look at the link I put up.
The cost in Western Australia is closer to Aus$100. We are paying exorbitant prices for utilities to a stupid government that wasted all of its mining dollars on pork-barelling and who are now grafting money from pensioners in council housing to pay government wages. But that was not the issue. My point was, and still is, that Sonos should try to be a an enabler of a greener world.
Just provide a software 'off' switch.

Sonos units are wireless network devices, and a fair proportion of the power requirements come from being always on, always alert, always available. Furthermore they need to maintain a dialogue with each other on a regular basis in order to sustain the system.

Sonos is clearly aware of the power issue though, as borne out by the appreciably lower figures for more recent products, e.g. BOOST vs BRIDGE, and PLAY:5 Gen 2 vs Gen 1.

Amplified units already power down their audio stages when idle. A software 'off' switch which shut down the main processor and disconnected the device from the network would be a one-way ticket requiring user intervention to force the device back online. Basically you'd have to power it off and on again, so on that basis you might as well turn it off in the first place.

But in terms of environmental impact, the electricity usage needs to balanced against the shortened lifespan caused by regular power cycling and the resulting increase in e-waste. Given the increasing trends towards low carbon energy production I'd go along with a few extra kWh rather than dumping yet more toxic substances on the surface of the planet.

If there was an "off' switch you could choose to use it or not.

There already is. It's the switch on the wall.

As already pointed out, a software "off" switch would have the same net effect: of cutting the device off from the network. You might just as well pull the plug.

Scrivener,

While the exact order varies by model, the top three failure modes of audio amplifiers are:

Output devices
Power supply components
Power switch

In general, the remaining failure modes are so sporadic that they are not worth tracking unless one particular model exhibits a significant design or production fault.

On the first level a mechanical power switch would seem to be the most "green" solution. But this may not be operationally convenient because you would need to track down all of the relevant power switches as you start and end each listening session. For convenience you may want a remotely operated switch for the most heavily used SONOS units -- if the idle power of the remote switch is less than the idling power of a SONOS unit. However, there is an environmental cost for these remote switch units and there will be a big environmental cost if a SONOS unit fails early because of all the power switching.

I think that one should consider the lifetime environmental cost of a unit and this spans the gamut from mining the raw materials, building the individual transistors, integrated circuits and such, assembling, testing, and shipping the unit, power used over the unit's operating lifetime, and ultimate disposal. Due to lack of data, this is not an easy equation to optimize.

Sonos, I love you! This thread proves only that some people just like to complain. Imagine I guess the genius who invented the wheel having to defend the fact that stuff tends to keep rolling!?! LMAO ...

The thread is basically some users wanting to be able to switch their devices off without getting out of their seats (and presumably 'living with' the 20 secs or so boot up afterwards) to reduce energy consumption - and others who don't see it as an issue and also that to switch them back on would then necessitate one to get out of the chair because the units are off so couldn't 'hear' any subsequent 'on' commands.
Is there a reason why there couldn't be a real, real 'deep sleep' that could wake up using a form of WOL - or does the wireless nature of most setups make that not possible? i.e. a pc's power usage when hibernating is way less than when just powering the hdd's, cpu etc. down - but can be woken quicker than a full startup via WOL.

I'm pretty sure that Sonos will have made the units to be as sleepy as possible and have the lowest possible power consumption when not receiving a signal.

Frankly it really is as simple as "Switch it of at the plug" if you're concerned about it.


But the caveat is that the units are NOT designed to be used in that way so there may be unforeseen circumstances - eg early failure

I'm pretty sure that Sonos will have made the units to be as sleepy as possible and have the lowest possible power consumption when not receiving a signal.

Just adding to this, with each new unit we get the idle power consumption levels to be even more conservation friendly. The new PLAY:5 uses less than a third of the idle power of the first generation. This is hardware based however, so not something that changes on older units. We're constantly looking at ways to improve things with software updates as well to spread the love to all our products.

Just got my own sonos and was interested in answers to this question. I noticed initially that the little LEDs were white, but turned green as soon as I started streaming, never to go back to white. While I understand devices like these remain ON to some degree, I found that interesting, even a bit troubling. I, too, noticed the heat buildup when "off".

I would have thought nothing further about it until I added sonos to my harmony remotes. Unlike from the sonos app, when I turn them OFF from the harmony, the LED turns back to white!? I cannot help but wonder about the significance of this, if anything.

At some point in the near future, surely I will get out my kill-a-watt and measure consumption at these various states.