Reduce idle consumption energy level (currently around 5W)
Sonos devices on average consume about 5 watts each if idle. Having 5 sonos devices around this means 25 watts on average idle consumption. Over a year this is about (25x24hx365) 219 kwh. In Germany where 1 kwh is about 0,30 Euro Cent this then means about 70 Euro (about 100$) just to maintain an idle system. This is just too much and could easily be reduced. Looking at the environmental aspect this gets even more critical: There are around 2.5 million Sonos devices around. This adds up to 110,000,000 kwh or 110 million kwh.
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Hi Alan, I. appreciate you taking the time to share that with me, but some of my amps such as my soundbar have mains that are not easily accessible, but again I appreciate the effort. Moreover, why can't sonos put a scheduler in? They have a clock within the setup, it's not a massive leap to move from this to implement a scheduler, in fact it's all incredibly easy. Plus it's sonos doing their bit for the environment, as they shouldn't have devices permanently on.
Hello Neil, you may like my route around this. I have bought a set of four of the wireless operated mains sockets, they are cheap to buy from B&Q etc. and I have set all four to turn on from the one button on the little wireless transmitter hand unit and there is an off button for the channel or a master off for every thing. Turning them off like this does cause an annoying but short delay when switching on while the Sonos links up all units before it will let you open the Sonos app.
Userlevel 2
(Along with Ed, above) I encourage Sonos and Sonos users to look at Apple TV as an example of an always-ready, WiFi multimedia device that uses less than 1W in standby mode. There's no reason my Sonos Connect should use 5-6 Watts in standby mode (I measured using a Kill-a-Watt power meter. My Play:1 also uses 5-6 Watts after being idle 3 minutes, which is more than the 3.4 Watts published by Sonos) https://www.apple.com/environment/reports/docs/AppleTV_Product_Environmental_Report_2012.pdf
The Median number of rooms in a U.S. home is 4 to 6. Five Sonos devices running 5 Watts for 20hrs/day would use roughly 200 kWh per year. At $0.10/kWh, that's $20 a year. NRDC published a related report on the hidden costs to consumers, public health, and the environment of always-on device architecture, called "Lowering the Cost of Play." http://www.nrdc.org/energy/game-consoles/lowering-the-cost-of-play.asp
Certainly, any given user has a choice whether they care about standby power use. But, when the costs are hidden and the manufacturer fails to make simple choices to be more efficient, we all pay the price by more fossil-fueled power plants running around the clock to fuel "energy-stupid" devices.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this. Have you tested the power consumption with wifi off?
Userlevel 4
+6
I've done this myself and used equipment to measure the power draw with and without this hardware enabled.
While this is not officially supported by SONOS it is not something that will damage or hinder the capabilities of your players or system, SONOS just prefer the Wi-Fi aways be on in the off chance that you may decide to go wireless with one or more players.
You can give it a shot: http://vowe.net/archives/013907.html
@kmjy
Thank you. Of course I will check the signal strength matrix to be sure that all sonos players still have enough signal. The reason why I asked is one of my players that is placed directly beside the bridge. Maybe you ask yourself why I'm having a bridge. This is because I'm using outlet switch timers and this player that is connected through cable is not powered on all the time. By that I reduce the power consumption to a minimum, but it causes an empty playlist, why I really need this feature, too:
https://ask.sonos.com/sonos/topics/default_source_when_turning_on_power
@neil
Of course you are right. I was only happy thats possible to disable the wireless. I still want a deep sleep as you said by scheduler or if cable connected through WoL. And of course it should be possible to have an option per player that allows to disable the wireless automatically if its connected to the ethernet.
Userlevel 5
+4
I've done this myself and used equipment to measure the power draw with and without this hardware enabled.
While this is not officially supported by SONOS it is not something that will damage or hinder the capabilities of your players or system, SONOS just prefer the Wi-Fi aways be on in the off chance that you may decide to go wireless with one or more players.
You can give it a shot: http://vowe.net/archives/013907.html
The BRIDGE will provide wireless to multiple players, but they all ultimately work together to boost and strengthen each other. That's why the Wi-Fi hardware always stays on even if the player is wired, while it may not seem to be using that hardware it is working with the other players.
My suggestion in the last comment was for an 'all wireless' setup, which would not use a BRIDGE.
If you are using a BRIDGE you can disable to Wi-Fi hardware in ALL wired players.If you are not using a BRIDGE then you would have to only disable the ones that are excess to the wireless players.
Userlevel 4
+6
I've done this myself and used equipment to measure the power draw with and without this hardware enabled.
While this is not officially supported by SONOS it is not something that will damage or hinder the capabilities of your players or system, SONOS just prefer the Wi-Fi aways be on in the off chance that you may decide to go wireless with one or more players.
You can give it a shot: http://vowe.net/archives/013907.html
So the bridge provides only wireless for one player?
Userlevel 5
+4
I've done this myself and used equipment to measure the power draw with and without this hardware enabled.
While this is not officially supported by SONOS it is not something that will damage or hinder the capabilities of your players or system, SONOS just prefer the Wi-Fi aways be on in the off chance that you may decide to go wireless with one or more players.
You can give it a shot: http://vowe.net/archives/013907.html
Yeah, you can disable only a few players but just make sure for every wireless player you have on your network, you also have that amount of players with Wi-Fi enabled. So if you have 2 wireless and 4 wired, you can disable Wi-Fi hardware on only two of the four wired players. This is because the other two wired players provide the connection to the two wireless players.
I've done this myself and used equipment to measure the power draw with and without this hardware enabled.
While this is not officially supported by SONOS it is not something that will damage or hinder the capabilities of your players or system, SONOS just prefer the Wi-Fi aways be on in the off chance that you may decide to go wireless with one or more players.
You can give it a shot: http://vowe.net/archives/013907.html
Sonos realy don't care about this. They seem only interested in ways of getting more referral sales from music service provdiers. Nearly all the updates enable you to access another provider. What have they improved recently for those with their own music collection? I hit the track limit a LONG time ago. No updates from Sonos on that either. I stopped recommending Sonos some time ago, now I'm actively discouraging people because of the issues. The idea is still excellent, but they are too interested in the referral income. Possibly, the Sonos needs to keep polling the music providers for Sonos to get paid???
Rant over..
I've done this myself and used equipment to measure the power draw with and without this hardware enabled.
While this is not officially supported by SONOS it is not something that will damage or hinder the capabilities of your players or system, SONOS just prefer the Wi-Fi aways be on in the off chance that you may decide to go wireless with one or more players.
You can give it a shot: http://vowe.net/archives/013907.html
Whilst appreciated kmjy and clearly make sense as power is not being used by the receiver /transmitter. Marc and my question is why can't sonos add a simple scheduler? Whereby you choose when to power the system down and when it should come online. Now it could be this is not possible for some reason, but I don't hear sonos saying that, so why can't it be done?
Userlevel 4
+6
I've done this myself and used equipment to measure the power draw with and without this hardware enabled.
While this is not officially supported by SONOS it is not something that will damage or hinder the capabilities of your players or system, SONOS just prefer the Wi-Fi aways be on in the off chance that you may decide to go wireless with one or more players.
You can give it a shot: http://vowe.net/archives/013907.html
Thank you. This is really cool as some of my Sonos are connected through LAN. You said "if all are wired" but I think this should work if only some of them are wired, too?!
Userlevel 5
+4
(Along with Ed, above) I encourage Sonos and Sonos users to look at Apple TV as an example of an always-ready, WiFi multimedia device that uses less than 1W in standby mode. There's no reason my Sonos Connect should use 5-6 Watts in standby mode (I measured using a Kill-a-Watt power meter. My Play:1 also uses 5-6 Watts after being idle 3 minutes, which is more than the 3.4 Watts published by Sonos) https://www.apple.com/environment/reports/docs/AppleTV_Product_Environmental_Report_2012.pdf
The Median number of rooms in a U.S. home is 4 to 6. Five Sonos devices running 5 Watts for 20hrs/day would use roughly 200 kWh per year. At $0.10/kWh, that's $20 a year. NRDC published a related report on the hidden costs to consumers, public health, and the environment of always-on device architecture, called "Lowering the Cost of Play." http://www.nrdc.org/energy/game-consoles/lowering-the-cost-of-play.asp
Certainly, any given user has a choice whether they care about standby power use. But, when the costs are hidden and the manufacturer fails to make simple choices to be more efficient, we all pay the price by more fossil-fueled power plants running around the clock to fuel "energy-stupid" devices.
For people who wire all of their players you can actually reduce the 'low power' (or 'idle') energy consumption by disabling the internal Wi-Fi hardware. For example, rather than 5W on idle it'll be around 3 to 2W instead, just by disabling the Wi-Fi hardware. It may not be much but when looked at in regards to the overall scheme of things it can add up to quite a big bit of power saving.
I've done this myself and used equipment to measure the power draw with and without this hardware enabled.
While this is not officially supported by SONOS it is not something that will damage or hinder the capabilities of your players or system, SONOS just prefer the Wi-Fi aways be on in the off chance that you may decide to go wireless with one or more players.
You can give it a shot: http://vowe.net/archives/013907.html
Userlevel 5
+4
For people who wire all of their players you can actually reduce the 'low power' (or 'idle') energy consumption by disabling the internal Wi-Fi hardware. For example, rather than 5W on idle it'll be around 3 to 2W instead, just by disabling the Wi-Fi hardware. It may not be much but when looked at in regards to the overall scheme of things it can add up to quite a big bit of power saving.
I've done this myself and used equipment to measure the power draw with and without this hardware enabled.
While this is not officially supported by SONOS it is not something that will damage or hinder the capabilities of your players or system, SONOS just prefer the Wi-Fi aways be on in the off chance that you may decide to go wireless with one or more players.
You can give it a shot: http://vowe.net/archives/013907.html
I've done this myself and used equipment to measure the power draw with and without this hardware enabled.
While this is not officially supported by SONOS it is not something that will damage or hinder the capabilities of your players or system, SONOS just prefer the Wi-Fi aways be on in the off chance that you may decide to go wireless with one or more players.
You can give it a shot: http://vowe.net/archives/013907.html
It's not difficult to put a scheduler in now is it. Please a SONOS for the sake of the environment.... Add one!
Userlevel 4
+6
The only disadvantage of disconnecting a Sonos is that the playlist will be deleted. If you are completely losing the connection this should be a general problem in your setup. I disconnect my Sonos in the home office every day (automatically). In the living room I leave the playbar connected to avoid long boot up times, but all other Sonos (SUB, Play:3) of this 5.1. setup are disconnected at night (automatically). And even this works perfectly. Either the playbar works alone or if the other Sonos come back, it will automatically re-group the setup. Because the playbar stays active every time the playlist is not deleted. But finally I really like to see a playlist staying active after power-off as well.
Does this cause problems when turning it back on?.. I always have to set up the Sonos player each time I turn it back on, which involves plugging it into the router down stairs, which is very time consuming. At the moment I don't use it for this very reason.
Userlevel 4
+6
@Sonos
1.) Please realize a simple energy saving schedule so the system can be send to standby at night after all boxes are muted/paused/stopped.
2.) Or add a simple feature in the controller based on WoL that sends a sleep-command to the bridge so it disconnects all sonos boxes. The next time someone opened the controller it appears a popup "wake up sonos?" and by that the bridge becomes active again. As long the bridge is in sleep mode no Sonos box is able to connect to the bridge. After 2 minutes they should give up and go to sleep for ca 30 minutes trying a re-connect. Additionally they should wake up if I press a hardware button.
1.) Please realize a simple energy saving schedule so the system can be send to standby at night after all boxes are muted/paused/stopped.
2.) Or add a simple feature in the controller based on WoL that sends a sleep-command to the bridge so it disconnects all sonos boxes. The next time someone opened the controller it appears a popup "wake up sonos?" and by that the bridge becomes active again. As long the bridge is in sleep mode no Sonos box is able to connect to the bridge. After 2 minutes they should give up and go to sleep for ca 30 minutes trying a re-connect. Additionally they should wake up if I press a hardware button.
At least make sure the devices remebers the group assignment and or the radio station they were plaing before they were powered off so I can use a simple timer between SONOS and the wall socket and just cut power between midnight and 6AM to save at least some energy. I really don't need 10 SONOS play wasting 4-6W when I'm sleeping.
+1
Why no response from SONOS on this very urgent problem or even much better why still wait for a good solution
They're arrogant! They're too popular to notice that all people aren't 100% happy with the product. They don't listen. I love the speakers, but don't like the customer care + software developement at all.
Regulation of corporate polluters is the answer.
We're talking about standby power consumption.
?? Were talking about idle and power consumption...
Actually I have the Bose Soundtouch II 20 and 30 and they have Spotify, Deezer, NAS, music library from PC/MAC, Internet radio. It is also Airplay compatible. I realise there are more services, but can you be specific with what you're looking for.
I'm pulling out the power on all the devices whenever they aren't in use, including the Bridge. However it can't really be that hard to implement a timed standby mode that drops the components into a listen mode where they wait for a signal from the apps or the Bridge, which waits solely for the app, to kick into life.
Honestly this omission shocked me when I set-up my first two Sonos units the other day. In fact this, coupled with two other issues I have, are making me consider using my 28 day return period.
In comparison, i tested standby consumption on my Samsung tv's yesterday. Putout was a round zero watts.
adding a contact is an idiot's solution.
SONOS are ment to hang on a wall, constantly connected.
Sleep mode must be introduced, or SONOS will die.
SONOS are ment to hang on a wall, constantly connected.
Sleep mode must be introduced, or SONOS will die.
This is probably more true than I dare to believe - having12 Sonos speakers 😮
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