Reduce idle consumption energy level (currently around 5W)

I only use my Play5 for a few hours a day and right now manually unplug it if not in use to avoid the high standby usage. At the very least, there should be a way to turn off the WiFi on the unit if you don't use that as that surely would result in some standby savings.

totally agree to the topic starter. But I do not think a wake-up funtionality would maintain the convenience nor rock-solid reliabilty of the product. Just look at all those airplay speaker for 500$ and above and read about the connectivity issues they have all the time. A compromise also supporting recent hardware may be a timer or scheduling service Sunday to Saturday. For example anyone with a job is 40 to 60 hr a week away from home. You know those things which are predictable could easily configured and save energy and money highly appreciated!

I agree. In the meantime I suggest using some remote control power switch outlets (Funksteckdosen). I suggest the Fritz!DECT 200 (expensive but it shows energy consumption): http://www.amazon.de/AVM-FRITZ-DECT-intelligente-Steckdose/dp/B00AQ9E77M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373051791&sr=8-1&keywords=dect+200&_encoding=UTF8&site-redirect=de&tag=maxrev-21&linkCode=ur2&camp=1638&creative=6742 With this you are able to control the outlets through your smartphone/tablet and you are able to add on/off-switch-plans. It supports google calendar as well. If this is too expensive you can use a usual remote control outlet and combine it with a Gateway so you are able to switch them with an app: http://www.amazon.de/s/ref=sr_nr_p_n_availability_1?rh=n%3A340843031%2Ck%3Alan+gateway+433%2Cp_n_availability%3A419126031&keywords=lan+gateway+433&ie=UTF8&qid=1373051887&_encoding=UTF8&site-redirect=de&tag=maxrev-21&linkCode=ur2&camp=1638&creative=6742 There are apps available called "SteckerChecker" or "PowerSwitch" to control multiple outlets through your smartphone/tablet.

I, too, have concerns with the power consumption and also being bathed in WiFi energy while asleep. I would feel much better if I could sleep the units overnight or on demand. It's really the only concern I have with the Sonos system.

Inspired by this post: http://forums.sonos.com/showthread.php?p=201482#post201482 If the Sonos bridge does not obtain an ip or the bridge is offline for 30 minutes then the other Sonos will go to "deepsleep".

I also find Sonos devices to be quite wasteful. What I finallly did was buy timers that switch off all Sonos components during the night. It's slightly annoying (you have to maintain the timers) and not optimal, but it's better than nothing. The disadvantage is that in the morning I find all my devices ungrouped and playlists forgotten.

When connecting the Sonos devices exclusively to wired switches the built-in WiFi support may be disabled automatically or by an option in the GUI. This would save lots of energy. The unit itself may also be switched to low-enery mode when it's not working and waked up on LAN requests.

When playing music my P:5s use ~15W and 8W on stand-by (as measured by a power consumption meter).  Anything that consumes 50% of operational power when in stand-by is not in stand-by or is from a company that does not really care about it's corporate social responsibility or it's consumers' energy costs or where all this wasted energy comes from or goes to.  When operational and with Play units operating without wired ethernet, the Bridge uses 3W and this is the maximum amount of energy I would expect any Sonos product to consume when then the amplifiers are not being powered but the SonosNet is running; I have no knowledge of Sonos' other products so cannot comment on P3, P1, etc but would like to know if anyone has reliable consumption figures (how about you Sonos? - are you prepared to publish your own data?).

I would like my Sonos products to have a couple of power-down states, from the current stand-by through to being in a 'fully off' situation that requires a user to press a button on a Player that turns on the unity and sends a WOL packet for re-connection.  In this way a Sonos device could operate with very, very low consumption.  An intermediate state would be a situation where a software 'WOL' could be operated from a controller via a Bridge.

Come on Sonos. I'm sure there is much more that can be done with the software.  If people are prepared to spend money on timer-switches they care about power-consumption.

I hope you take this up.

I too agree completely. Constantly powering on and off via switches etc defeats the object of the system somewhat. I have speakers mounted quite high up with hidden power sockets.

I am interested in both reducing standby power costs as well as wifi radiation whilst asleep.

I would have thought it would be simple enough to tell all the units to go into receive only mode (listening only) . Once a unit which is wired into the LAN is triggered from a controller, it would wake up and send signals to all the others to wake up. As the CT  100 etc are being phased out, it means that ALL other controllers are going to go through the router etc.

This could be improved by sending specific signals so only specified units would wake up as required.

Also a general timed option to shut down would be good. This is how I have my general wifi set up. I can always override it manually if necessary.

I understand the mesh approach, so maybe if a unit is required to be on as it needs to be for "hopping" to a distant unit, this unit would stay on. To implement wouldn't be so hard as IF a unit was told to be active and then loses a signal it could broadcast to all other units which were switched off as they would STILL be in listening mode.

So far there are following suggested features to reduce idle energy consumption:

-- Stand-by or listen-only mode during idle to maintain network connection and wake up when necessary.

-- Programmable timer built into firmware to shut down and power up any player at specific times programmed by users.

-- Mesh network connections must be maintained in wireless network for music distribution from centralised media depositories (NAS or computer).

-- When network module is in operation to maintain wireless network connection for music distribution, all digital amplifiers can be powered down when they are not in use.

To cater to all new/old models of player without resorting to change in hardware, I suppose the least intrusive and cheapest way of implementing the features is to move all networking functionalities from all players to the bridges. Namely all players connect only to bridges but not other players to establish connections within wireless network. Few bridges form a backbone wireless network to route music data and wake-up alerts to the players. These bridges can be powered on all the time but not the players, one of the bridges is connected to router for Internet access through Ethernet link. Obviously bridge consume far less energy than player. Players must be positioned carefully for good sound reproduction but not the bridges, thus ensure better signal transmission and network coverage.

So all hardwares can be maintained as before except firmwares for bridge and player must be updated to support extra power saving features. Bridge should be bundled with every purchase of players as it is no longer optional item. Same as before, few players can share a single bridge.