Move - standby question | Sonos Community

Having just received the Move, a few questions related to the device in standby:

1. Will it automatically enter a sort of power standby if not used and no music is playing? If so, at what interval?

2. Can it be woken from standby By playing to it From the app, without physically interacting with the Move?

Experience thus far is inconclusive as when let powered on but not in use, the app seemed to reflect it was unavailable, but when I entered the room the lights on Move remained on.

If I power off using the rear button, it then doesn't appear that it can be reached from the app or powered on remotely.

As a result I'm not clear which is the best/correct method of entering standby. My preference would be to simply leave it powered 'on' and have it enter a low power sleep state until music is played to it or I physically press a button to wake.

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All Sonos speakers are designed to be on all the time, but they go into low power mode when not being played. Looks like the same for the Move when on its charging base.

When off the base it goes into low power mode to give 5 days standby. Would be interesting to know how long before this is invoked. I am assuming that even in this mode all that is needed is to select it in the app to get it working. I hope that is the case so will be interested in the official answers to your q's

twuk,

I'm still playing with my new Sonos 'Move'. I personally think it’s brilliant. I have been gathering together some information about it and here is what I have found so far...

My understanding is that when the “Move” is sat on its 'powered-on' charger loop, it behaves like any other indoor Sonos speaker and is in a 'wait state' and ready to play at any point. There is no automatic'standby'/'power-off' whilst the charger loop is supplying it with AC power.

When the 'Move’ is off its charger loop and running on its built-in battery, then I understand it's 'power state' behaves differently when not playing. It has two 'power-down' states, one of which I will perhaps call “standby or sleep mode” and the other is “powered off” completely.

The 'Move' can be put into standby/sleep mode, by a single quick press on the top rear power button.
The 'Move' can be powered off by a long (5+ second) press on the same power button.
The 'Move' running on battery seems to fall into 'standby/sleep mode' after approx. 30 minutes of inactivity. I don’t know if it then powers off completely, but suspect it would, particularly if the battery reaches a low point where it needs to be re-charged.

I think when the speaker is 'powered off' it can be brought back to life by either placing it back on the charger loop or pressing it's power button on the rear (assuming the battery hasn’t drained).

When it’s running on battery and in standby/sleep mode I have found the 'Move' can be woken in these different ways...

By returning it to the charger loop
By pressing the rear top power button
By simply opening the Sonos App connected to the same Sonos Household. (The App must have been closed completely not just brought into focus on screen for that to actually work).
It may also wake itself up to receive updates (not sure, but have seen that mentioned online?)

So this is from the things I have read and played with so far, but you may need to just double check the information, as presumably things maybe subject to change to what some users have already mentioned online.

You may also find the following information helpful about the three buttons on the rear of the 'Move' device...

Power Button (Top)

A short press will put the 'Move' to sleep
A long press will power off the 'Move' completely

Wifi/BT button (Middle)

A short press will toggle Bluetooth mode or WiFi mode
A long press in BT mode will enable it's BT pairing mode

Infinity Button (Bottom)

A short press will start pairing mode for the Controller connection during initial setup.
A long press will activate a snapshot button Diagnostic (you will see the LED switching colors, press the same button once more to get out of this mode). I’m still trying to find out more about this particular feature.

Anyhow I hope that information helps you with understanding your new Sonos device.

I’m sure we will ALL discover even more about this new Sonos product in the coming days and weeks.

Great answer Ken!

The suspend mode kicks in after about 30 minutes of inactivity, and there are several ways it'll wake up, such as when you open the app, or press buttons on it, or move it to the dock. It has a sophisticated wake on LAN built in.

Sadly my first day with Move has not been stellar. Initial impressions were great - excellent build quality, great sound, worked exactly as expected with the app etc. After use yesterday I put into standby by hitting (tapping, not holding) the power button.

This morning upon waking with a single tap of the power button, initiating playback via Alexa failed completely. She repeatedly said she was having problems. Ok, I thought, could be the Alexa 'service' at fault.

Opened the app on iPhone to see only that the Move was offline. Waited a bit, tried again, no joy. Entered standby (single tap) and woke again, no joy.

Eventually I did a full power down by holding the power button for 5 seconds, then again waking. This seemed to do the trick.

Bottom line is that I don't feel I should have to do this dance on a daily basis to use the speaker. It should enter low power standby - either automatically or with a tap on power - and wake as expected, rejoining the network and being available in a few seconds for playback.

I've captured diagnostics and raised a ticket, but initial response from support also not adequate, simply saying there's no issue shown in the log. Not surprising, given the speaker wasn't likely connected to the cloud at the time, but had hoped it might have sync'd any logs once it did connect. It would seem there must be a way to capture diagnostics offline and share when again connected. I would have hoped support would proactively have suggested this (unless it's not possible!) rather than ignoring the root issue.

Will of course continue to monitor, and I accept it's early days so some firmware tweaks may be necessary.

twuk,

I've not experienced any such problems so far. Did you choose the shorter range 5ghz connection, instead of the longer reaching 2.4ghz radio? The latter not only has further reach around the home, but can provide better penetration through walls, so if the problem persists, maybe try switching the Move over to that radio instead.

Thanks Ken, yes it's on 5ghz but we have a very small property and excellent coverage. Would also note that its position didn't change between it working fine the day before, nor working fine after a hard reset.

Purely speculating here, but I'm going to guess it has put itself into some deeper standby after a period of time and then failing to establish connectivity properly on wake.

No objections to trying 2.4ghz band, but I doubt signal strength is the problem.

No worries twuk, perhaps keep an eye out for any App/Firmware updates too as they tend to resolve any issues.

On a somewhat related note, the rest of my Sonos kit connects via a Boost, but that didn't appear to be an option when I set up the Move. Thinking about it further, should it not be using the Boost when in wireless mode?

The Move doesn't connect to Sonosnet (through Boost) like the other speakers. the reasoning being that Sonosnet was designed to operate with stationary devices, not devices that can be moved from room to room like the Move is. The designers believed that given the above and the increased reliability of modern routers/wifi since sonosnet was first created, it made more sense for the Move to be wifi only.

Thanks for this. This answers one of the two questions I came on here for. The second question is how do I change the wireless network of the Move? When I set it up I put it on my 5GHz network but the 2.4 would be better for range.

nifoxke,

I think that currently the easiest way to switch between the 5ghz and 2.4ghz network is to reset the Move and set it up again using this procedure...

Take Move off the charging base.
Press and hold the power button for at least 5 seconds to power it off. Wait for 30 seconds.
Press and hold the infinity/join button and place Move back on the charging base.
Continue holding the infinity/join button until the light on top flashes orange and white and then let go the button.
The light will flash green when the process is complete and your Sonos Move is ready to be set up.
Post setup you will need to also reinstall the voice assistant to the speaker.

Here is another helpful method to switch to a completely different local network (just for your information) too...

Connect your mobile device to the new WiFi network.
Open the Sonos app and wait while it searches for your Sonos system.

If the app shows “We can’t connect to Sonos,” tap This isn’t working.

Tap More Options, then Update Wi-Fi Settings.
Follow the instructions to connect your Move to the new WiFi network.

Sonos products can remember the credentials for up to 16 wireless networks. When you bring your Move back home, it will automatically reconnect to your WiFi network.

Thanks both. Much appreciated.

Oh, and for what it's worth, the original 'offline' issue didn't occur today. Will continue to monitor and hope it was a one off.

I am interested in getting a move speaker. I already have sonos equipment around my house. My question is can move be grouped with the other sonos products ? Like party mode where every speaker plays the same source ?. So if the weather is poor etc I could just use it like any other sonos speaker. If not I will just stick my play 5 which i move outside anyway. Thanks

MathewG1: I came to this feed to better understand the sleep mode (thanks, all, for the info!) but can tell you that we pre-ordered a Move for the very reason you allude to: every time we dine out on our terrace, I have been plugging in a "roving" Play 5 (that's even the name I gave it) which has been *fine* but annoying. Been waiting for years for a portable Sonos and the Move doesn't disappoint!! The sound is brilliant and yes it works like all the other speakers in Party mode. I now leave it docked in a spot that never had a speaker before and just pick it up to take outside when we are out there; it also now occasionally gets moved to the bathroom which doesn't have enough space/sockets - and no drop-ceiling - to have a full-time speaker. My only regret is that Sonos didn't come up with this sooner... and that even at this late date they didn't release it before summer in the northern hemisphere!

I am having the issue with the Move powering back on even after I do the 5 second shutdown off the base as well. I like to keep it off the base upstairs but the battery after a couple days it dies without use. I thought the 5 second shut down would work but I came back later that day and it had powered back on. I love the sound but there needs to be a way to completely shut it down to preserve battery so it can be turned on when needed. For the premium that is paid for Sonos this seems to be a blatant miss.

Hi @zcrowder, the team is currently investigating some battery related trouble, along with Moves that are powering on on their own. They’re looking into it to see what’s causing this, and to get it resolved. Still gathering data though, so I don’t have an ETA to share.

I picked up a Move yesterday and my initial experience with sleep and the battery was less than stellar. A run down of usage after the initial setup:

Charge the battery to 100% on the base
Listen to ~30 minutes of TuneIn on battery before stopping playback
Go to bed, get up this morning
Sonos app can’t find the Move
Status Light on top of the Move is solid white. Pressing the Play or Volume buttons causes the Status Light to blink momentarily and a chime is NOT emitted.
Pressing the Power button has no effect. Placing the Move back on the charging dock has no effect

The only way that I could get the Move to come back was to long-press the Power button until the Status Light turned off and then pressing the Power button again to power it back on. When it finally came back online, the battery had depleted to 36%.

The manual says the following about the Power button (emphasis mine):

Press to power on; press and hold to power off. If Move is off the charging base, it goes to sleep to save battery when you’re not using it. Just press the power button to wake it up.

This was definitely not my experience. Any guidance from Sonos on what the issue could be or misconceptions about how the product is supposed to work?

Quite different from jm843 above, this has been my typical experience with my new Sonos Move and it’s battery performance ...

I fully charged my Move Speaker called “portable” and then switched off its charger at exactly mid-day the other day and left it standing on its loop.

After 30 minutes it correctly ‘fell’ into standby mode, as expected. All lights off.

At 3pm, so 3 hours later, I opened the mobile Sonos Controller App (from fully closed state) and as expected the Move immediately came out of standby mode and the status/mic LED lights came on... I was able to play music to the speaker (brief test).

So in summary, during the three hours, the speaker was awake for the first 30 minutes and then in standby mode for 150 minutes and my battery level dropped by 5% to 95%.

I know already (another earlier test) that my speaker powers itself off completely, at or near, to the 7% battery level, so my thoughts are that the Move should remain in standby and 'playable' for approx. 56 hours or more, probably closer to 60 hours (2.5 days) in standby mode, without waking it too often.

It does not appear to make any difference, whether the speaker is on the charger-loop (powered off), or fully removed from the charger altogether.

Thats been my experience so far, at least.

In some other tests undertaken, I have found that when the Move is powered off completely (not standby) off it’s charger loop, it loses approx. 5% battery level in a full 24 hour period and so would likely not need recharging in that mode for about 2.5 weeks.

I see some folks have tested the Move using constant WiFi playback and found it will play an audio source (streaming radio) for more than 10 hours until the battery is completely discharged. So that seems fair enough. I’ve not seen anything about constant Bluetooth playback time ...and I haven’t tested that.

I personally think that’s a rather good overall rechargeable battery performance for the speaker, but perhaps there is still room for some small further improvement as Sonos work on these things to squeeze-out even more from its battery.

Status Light on top of the Move is solid white. Pressing the Play or Volume buttons causes the Status Light to blink momentarily and a chime is NOT emitted.
Pressing the Power button has no effect. Placing the Move back on the charging dock has no effect

The only way that I could get the Move to come back was to long-press the Power button until the Status Light turned off and then pressing the Power button again to power it back on.

Day two of using the Move and I experienced the above again where the Move becomes unresponsive, continues to drain the battery, and requires a complete reboot to comeback. This time I did a few hours of mixed playback (SiriusXM/Google Play Music) on battery and single pressed the Power button. The Move emitted the normal tone and all lights went off indicating that it was in sleep move. I walked away thinking that all was well. When I walked by a short time later, the Status Light was back on and the Move was in the state described above. I took a short video on my phone in case it might interest someone at Sonos as it sounds similar to the issue that @Ryan S said the Sonos team was investigating.

One theory: the Move isn’t always gracefully handling its network connected state. I say this because I was later able to reproduce (even while the Move was awake on the dock) by disabling the guest network on my wireless router that the Move was connected to. After disabling the wireless network that the Move was connected to, I expected the Status Light to blink white as it reestablished its connection with my “main” wireless network. Instead, it became unresponsive as described above. Since this is relatively easy to test, perhaps someone else can corroborate?

A total hunch: the errant wake from the WOL sleep state is due to a bug with the Android version of the Sonos app. I’m using Android (Pixel 2 on latest OS/patch levels) and I’d be curious if @twuk and @zcrowder are also Android users. If there’s anything to this shot in the dark, than I’d bet that @Ken_Griffiths is using iOS.

Overall I like the Move quite a bit and I’m hoping that these rough spots can be smoothed out sooner than later.

jm9843,

I mainly use iOS, that’s true, iPhone XR and iPads (x2), but my Wife and I do have an Android Tablet that is running version 8.1 Oreo but that’s mostly used as a spare..

In respect to the Move switching networks, I have set mine up to run on my main WiFi, my mobile MiFi (mobilenet) device and my iPhone XR hotspot (see screenshot)… its mostly connected to the home main 5ghz WiFi band.

If I take the Move away from the home, out of range, or switch off the home WiFi, it immediately jumps to one of the other previously setup connections (whichever one I choose to make available). It seems not to have any difficulty in finding any of the other networks. I’ve not seen a case where the speaker becomes unresponsive, at least I’ve not noticed that, but it’s not something that I have extensively tested here.

Re: Sonos Move coming out of Sleep mode on its own and becoming unresponsive requiring a complete power down.

I had some time last night to setup a tripod with my phone to demonstrate this problem from beginning to end in moving pictures. There are two videos because the camera app on my Pixel phone automatically split the video at the 4 GB mark. I assure you that there is no editing.

I put the Move into Sleep mode at 0:55 of video 1
The Move comes out of Sleep mode on its own at 15:28 of video 1 after 14:33 had elapsed since going into Sleep mode
I demonstrate how the Move has become unresponsive and requires a complete power down at 2:25 of video 2

I’m going to contact Sonos support via email and see what kind of response I get before making a determination whether to return the Move to the retailer. Unfortunately, this problem has a really negative effect on the UX of an otherwise nice speaker.

cc: @Ryan S

jm9843,

i assume it wake’s up to check for updates or IP address lease-renewal. Here is something to try.. add the Move’s IP address to the routers DHCP Reservation Table and see if that fixes the issue of it losing its connection. It’s not unheard of that some routers can lose track of IP addresses .. one example is the netgear nighthawk routers are known for that type of issue. I’m wondering if reserving the IP address will prevent it losing its way.

Hope that helps to fix it for you, it’s certainly worth a try.

jm9843,

Here is something to try.. add the Move’s IP address to the routers DHCP Reservation Table and see if that fixes the issue of it losing its connection.

Thanks for the suggestion. I reserved a static IP address for the Move on my router (Nest WiFi), did a complete power down and back on, but unfortunately it made no difference. The Move still comes out of Sleep mode and becomes unresponsive after a short period of time.

Another data point: for these tests the Move has been connected to my main Nest WiFi router (i.e. NOT one of the mesh “point” devices) and on the 5GHz band. Throughput to the Move seems to hover on average around 100 Mbps.

Fwiw, I’ve had zero issues with the Nest WiFi with regard to any speed or connectivity issues with any other device. At this point I consider this to be a pretty bad bug with Sonos/Move which I guess isn’t entirely surprising given that this is their first product that doesn’t operate 100% of the time on mains electricity or have the option to run in the “Boost configuration” for that matter. They’ve got to get it sorted though.

jm9843,

Ah now it makes a little more sense to me, as I was going to ask what WiFi router system you were using… you can perhaps see what I think about Google Nest WiFi set alongside Sonos devices in this thread…

https://en.community.sonos.com/setting-up-sonos-228990/general-connection-question-6834906#post16387349

The simple fact that there is no control over their channel settings is the simple reason I would personally never choose to use them with Sonos. I prefer a system where the user has complete control over channel selection. Sonos uses mDNS broadcasts to communicate and that operates best when all devices are on the same WiFi channel.

My thoughts are, if you “turned off” your Nest hub satellites and stuck to just using the main Nest router hub only with everything setup and working on that hub, your Sonos problems would likely disappear.

Even folk constantly moving about the home can cause the WiFi channels to change. It’s a pity there is no way to fix all the hubs to the same channel.

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