I could be missing something completely, but in the Plex Home Theater settings, there is a screen saver option to suspend on idle. This was different than the Windows screen saver/power saving functionality in that PHT would idle out a pause screen or menu option but not a playing movie. I realize that some manufacturers package a “do not turn off while playing media” with their power managers, but I don’t have any of those. As it stands right now, if PMP idles, it kicks to the screen saver and keeps the TV on until it has its own built inactivity timer.
Are there any suggestions from users out there on how to sleep my HTPC after 15 or 30 minutes? Or maybe I’m missing something blindingly obvious?
Any updates on whether this is on the roadmap or not? I just installed the PMP preview, but can’t find the “Power Saving” options that are present in PHT. I have my server/HTPC setup so that PHT is open 24/7, but the machine suspends when it is idle for 15 minutes, as electricity costs are very high where I live.
@james00794 said:
Any updates on whether this is on the roadmap or not? I just installed the PMP preview, but can’t find the “Power Saving” options that are present in PHT. I have my server/HTPC setup so that PHT is open 24/7, but the machine suspends when it is idle for 15 minutes, as electricity costs are very high where I live.
The difference between sleep and active can’t be that massive that you can measure it.
@james00794 said:
Any updates on whether this is on the roadmap or not? I just installed the PMP preview, but can’t find the “Power Saving” options that are present in PHT. I have my server/HTPC setup so that PHT is open 24/7, but the machine suspends when it is idle for 15 minutes, as electricity costs are very high where I live.
The difference between sleep and active can’t be that massive that you can measure it.
Useful feature to have though.
Fair point. Maybe I’ll run an experiment and see how much of a difference it truly makes. I’ve seen (anecdotal) reports of people saving up to 13 dollars a month just by having their HTPCs go to sleep when they aren’t using it. Anyways, not a deal breaker of course, but still nice to have!
It’s the difference between 0 watts and usually 50-150 watts depending on PSU efficiency level. TV/Monitor itself is then another 20 watts to maybe 100+ watts (not really sure).
In my case I have a super dumb TV that only has a poorly implemented inactivity timeout which triggers if the TV itself hasn’t received any IR commands in a period of time… truly abysmal. Nothing to do with display activity/pixel changes.
@superdx said:
I’ve been reporting this issue for the past couple months but devs seem to be ignoring it.
No we are not ignoring it. We need to rewrite the whole portion of the code and retest and we have other things to deliver as well. But we are looking into it.
Thank you for the ping, Tobias! I understand prioritizing completely. I am still looking for creative solutions for this in the meantime and am glad it’s on the long-term radar.
In regards to the power draw on the HTPC, it’s not a huge amount, it’s also not trivial. I am in the same boat of having a TV that is fairly limited in how it turns off due to activity (after 1 hour without pushing TV remote buttons, not adjustable). For now, when I have other people/kids leaving Plex on and forgetting or walking away, it leaves the TV on indefinitely - which is the issue I actually want to address (both power and reducing TV running hours). In fact, what prompted my original thread is that my TV was left on for a week while everyone was out of town and the last person to watch just left the Plex screen saver up.
Sleep seems to be working again in the latest PMP release. While there are no settings within Plex PMP like there were in PHT, the server seems to obey the OSX sleep settings now. Yay!
I hate to reopen this thread, but it seems like maybe it is not solved entirely. I have installed Plex Player on my Apple TV Siri Version. When we pause a movie, after a short period the Apple screen saver comes on and upon return, it requires a logging in again. What is funny about it, is that the first time we had this happen, when I pressed the continue button on the Apple remote, the movie started again and we could hear the movie. The screen saver did not clear. So we had to touch another key on the remote at which point it displayed the user choice screen and required the login.
