Latest updates for each Sonos products

Thank you so much.  That was very easy.

You seem like someone who is very knowledgeable on Sonos, do you otherwise see any issues with turning off our 5 x Playbars, 1 x Arc and 6 x Connect Amps, when we are not using any of them and if not, is there a limit to how long we should leave them all off, for example if we were to go away on holiday for 3 weeks? i.e. with the price of power/energy we are just trying to conserve as much power as possible.  Thanks in advance.

Sonos are designed to remain plugged in, they go to a low power mode when inactive.

Power cycling isn't good for any electronic device as the initial surge at power-up is hard on them. How hard and how many cycles will be tolerated is a hard question.

So what I do (not recommended by Sonos) is that I power down Sonos that aren't going to be used for a couple weeks. Everything else stays on. I do power everything up to keep up with updates, given recent issues I'm doing it monthly, in the past it was more like twice a year.

Thanks Stan, much appreciated.

When you say “they go to a low power mode when inactive.” do you or anyone else have any idea how much each Sonos device (i.e. a Connect Amp, a Playbar and an Arc) consumes, power-wise, when active and inactive?

Thanks in advance.

I'm on a tiny screen so searching is hard but on the support page you should be able to find the numbers. I think most are in the single digit Watt range.

Thanks Stanley, and sorry for what might seem like silly questions, but when you say “support page” is that a page on the Sonos website?  Cheers, Richard

Pretty sure @Stanley_4 is referring to this page, which I found using a fairly simple Google search for ‘Sonos power use’ 

Thank you - I contacted Sonos and they (or the bot?) could only advise what the power consumption is on inactive mode, but they (or the bot) couldn’t advise what the power consumption is in active mode.

Wouldn’t that be a variable, depending on the source material, and the volume in use?

Hi Bruce, I did wonder that, but I would assume they’d publish a maximum wattage or even a typical/average power consumption during typical usage i.e. a bit like car manufacturer's publish a car’s fuel consumption.

The challenge with those type of numbers are that there is no ‘standard’, IMHO, so publishing a ‘maximum wattage’ or RMS is just marketing hype, if it’s even possible. What you’re asking for is slightly more precise, but still so variable that it has essentially very little meaning. 

Support, as in the third link from the left on every forum page.

With search terms added:  https://support.sonos.com/en-us/search?q=power+use

The rated maximum is shown on the speaker’s data plate but that is pretty worthless as you’d likely never see that unless you were trying to blow one up.

You can see your speaker’s power usage with a simple Kill-A-Watt type meter, usually $20-30 for the basic version.

I have TP-Link Tapo smart plugs with energy monitoring which can give you the power usage whilst devices are being used.

I use a Sonos Beam Gen 2 as a table radio in my bedroom. It's plugged into a power monitoring smart plug with a Chromecast Audio. The Sonos is plugged in to ethernet (no WiFi). The monitor on the plug says that combination averages 6.5W when it's doing nothing, 11W when I'm listening to the radio.

To test, I just unplugged the Chromecast, and the idle consumption for the Sonos went below 6W. That's a little under the value stated on the support page, but pretty close.

6W constant consumption costs me about 12 Gbp a year to leave plugged in, and I do have an intention to have the smart plug turn it all off for most of the time in a way that noone notices. Maybe I'll do that today 🤔