Standby mode

One of the few but big flaws of the SoMa is the strange standby mode. As far as I have understood there are 2 modes, although only the "real" standby mode 2 is saving energy, albeit without charging any i-device through the dock.

I only found these mode per chance in this forum. It is not mentioned in the manual (which btw is pretty senseless, there is more information in the quick guide). There should be some online manual available as far as i have read, but haven'f found this one either yet.

Back to the standby mode(s). One of them is when you keep the play-button pressed for 2-3 seconds. Then the docked device gets locked, music is stopped but nothing else happens. In this mode the SoMa is still consuming 14 Watts and it is charging through the dock. But in this mode both speaker and bluetooth-circuit are still active. I can still stream music from any bluetooth device to the Audyssey, so it is not really a standby-mode, or even rather useless.

Then there is the "real" standby-mode 2 where you have to press play for 6-8 seconds. In this mode the SoMa only wastes 0.5 Watts, but it doesn't charge any i-device either.

I am not sure if this can be changed somehow, but i would suggest to improve standby-mode 1 a bit. If this one is activated, the whole speaker, amplifier including bluetooth etc. should be turned off, the only thing active should be the charging-dock, nothing else.

Standby-mode 2 should remain as it is, everything shut off completely with exception of the infrared-sensor in order to be able to wake the SoMa up again.

This is a big wish, I really hope this can be improved as most of the time I want to charge my devices during night, but don't need the speaker to be turned on whole the time. I am sure much energy could be saved like this.

Is there a way that the standby-mode could be tweaked through a firmware-update?

Thanks, Olaf

oluv -
Have more questions? Submit a request

8 Comments

Date Votes
  • 0
    Avatar
    Audyssey Labs

    Hi Olaf,

    The manual is online here:

    http://www.audyssey.com/sites/default/files/manuals/audyssey-audiodockmanual.pdf

    You can also get to is from the Support site:

    http://www.audyssey.com/support/product-support

    As mentioned in the manual it is not possible to charge while in standby mode.  That would require more power consumption than is allowed while in standby.  When it's in standby mode, the dock consumes 0.6 W.

  • 0
    Avatar
    oluv

    Thanks for the link to the manual, I was searching for it and was not able to find it.

    I see, so standby with charging-support is not allowed. But maybe a power-saving mode, where all speakers, amplifiers etc are off and only the charging dock is active?

    i think 14W is a bit too much for charging only when the speakers are not used at all.

    or is such a mode technically not possible either? what a pity!

    my old speakerdock was more "intelligent" then. when there was nothing to charge and nothing to play it just went into standby-mode automatically after some minutes and consumed only 0.5W. when i left an iphone inside for charging it consumed about 5W and dropped again to 0.5W when the iphone was fully charged.

    i accept that the audyssey cannot charge anything with 0.5W but at least it would be cool if it automatically changed to standby if there was nothing docked and nothing played through bluetooth.

  • 0
    Avatar
    Audyssey Labs

    Hi Olaf,

    The power required to charge is determined by the Apple specification. 

  • 0
    Avatar
    oluv

    Well yes I am aware of it, but I am not sure if you really understand what I am after.

    The problem is that even when I intend the Audyssey Dock to be used only for charging an Apple-device (e.g. during night) it is still active as a whole which means the bluetooth-circuit, the amplifier etc. everything still works, although in this case I would rather prefer it to be off and the whole energy should only be used for charging. Do you get it? I am sorry I am not a native speaker, maybe I express myself a bit too complicated.

    As it is now there are only 2 states: The whole speaker system is on (including the charging dock), or it is off completely and you cannot charge anything either. But there is one mode missing inbetween, one where the speaker is off, but the charging-dock still active.

  • 0
    Avatar
    Audyssey Labs

    If you are charging only and not playing music then the amp does not consume very much power.  Certainly much less than the power that is consumed for charging.  So, I don't think there is any need for any additional modes.

  • 0
    Avatar
    oluv

    Ok, I understand now.

    Another thing regarding the Bluetooth pitch-change i mentioned recently in another thread. Sorry to hijack this thread for this, but it seems nothing really cares about it.

    Have you noticed this problem? It can become quite annoying if the Bluetooth connection is interrupted shortly or if you start a song after a pause, the first 5-10 seconds always have some "pitch-catching". Can this behaviour be improved somehow?

    Thanks again for your help!

  • 0
    Avatar
    Audyssey Labs

    I saw that comment.  I've never observed this behavior and I tried to reproduce it yesterday but could not.  I wonder if it has to do with the source device trying to adjust its timing.  I'm not sure what could be causing this.

  • 0
    Avatar
    oluv

    I can record an audio sample maybe and post it here if it helps you. First i thought it might be a problem with my Apple devices. The problem always occurs with an Iphone4 and an Ipad2, especially if it is docked and you switch between dock and Bluetooth, you will notice that when hearing the Bluetooth stream the pitch (or maybe even speed) is completely off.

    But then even with the Samsung Wave from my wife it was the same. It was even more noticable there, because her phone often causes short drops when streaming through bluetooth. This Samsung does it with nearly any bluetooth speaker I have tried so far. The problem when this happens with the Ausyssey is that the pitch starts fluctuating every time the drop occurs. Some sporadic drops wouldn't be that bad, but those pitch-changes drive me mad.

Article is closed for comments.