Can I leave the Apple TV plugged in all the time?

The only problem with unplugging it is the sudden loss of power to the hard drive. It is like pulling the power cord on your computer while it is on. If Apple TV could be completely turned off, it would be nice. Just unplugging it however can damage the hard drive over time. I think they get hot because of the small enclosure and having no fans. I don't worry about mine. 1 year warranty and I might get the Pro Care.

I can't wait to see what effect 15 days of being on
constantly will do to my electric bill.

From its specs, the Apple TV will use no more than 48 watts, so at worst it will have about the same effect on your bill as leaving a 50 watt light bulb on continuously. If you want to calculate the cost, figure about 1.1 kilowatt-hour (kWh) per day times the number of days in the billing period times the kWh rate your electric company charges. (The actual cost will be lower, assuming it doesn't draw full rated power continuously -- this is a worst case scenario.)

For my area, it works out to a bit less than $5 a month, or close to $60 per year.

As of right now, there's no way to turn off the Apple TV from the remote. Standby mode, just puts the OS to sleep, while still being able to Sync your iTunes library.

If you want to turn it off, you have to actually pull out the power plug for now, until Apple comes out with a suitable solution.

That being said, the Apple TV should be just slightly warm after being in Standby mode for a while. Mine does run hot while in use, but not that egg frying hot that some people are experiencing.

I just make sure to put it in Standby mode if I'm done using it. After awhile, my Apple TV is barely warm, if not cool to the touch while in Standby Mode.

AL

I'm
surprised Apple didn't design this thing to be more
green (what with Al Gore on the board), and I'm very
disappointed.

Eureka !! You've inadvertantly stumbled upon the real cause of Global Warming !! You need to contact Al asap !

Thanks for the reply, but question i had was whether
you can shut off the atv. it appears from the lack of
an answer that the best you can do is put it in
standby. problem is that my atv even in standby
always feels hot to the touch and i was hoping there
was a way to turn it off short of disconnecting power
cord.

I don't think anyone answered the original

question.

I believe the question was can the apple TV be

left

on continuously without harm to it.

As the Apple TV does not have a power switch, one

may

infer that it may be left on without harm to the
unit..

I Think we all know the answer to this question,in my opinion,it is to hot to leave on,and not good to turn it off,therefore,we need a simple cheap way to cool it without heat sinks and foil that may interfere with the wireless operation,maybe an entertainment center fan that would keep all units cool with the apple tv at the top of the heap with a quiet fan above it mounted with standoffs on ceiling of compartment above equipment,something like a larger computer fan.Any idea`s? My netdisk box doesn`t get that hot but gets hot enough to kill 2 hard drives a year.

repair56,

If your Apple TV runs hotter than another box that slow-roasts hard drives, it is possible your Apple TV is defective. Judging by the anecdotal posts in this forum in a number of "hot" topics, there seems to be a lot of variation in how hot individual units run, from "lukewarm" to "burning hot."

Some of the overly hot ones may be too hot because they don't receive adequate ventilation or are placed in already hot locations, but mounting evidence suggests a few of them inherently generate unusually large amounts of heat, perhaps because some out-of-tolerance part found its way into their manufacture.

You may want to take yours to an Apple Store to have it checked out, or at least to call AppleCare about it.

As for general cooling ideas, it is not a good one to stack an Apple TV directly on top of another unit that generates much heat, or to place it on a shelf where the air around it is heated by other components. In closed-back entertainment centers, it might be a good idea to cut a hole in the back of the unit & mount a "whisper" fan in it such that it exhausts air out the back, rather than on spacers near the top which might just recirculate hot air through the compartment.

Any solution that draws cool air across the device should work, though.

the heat is unlikely to be a problem and unlikely to "cook" the hard drive. The heat you're feeling is directly from the processors which use the top of the case as their heat sink. The HD is underneath the board attached to the bottom of the case and uses that sheet of metal as it's heat sink. So the drive will probably be considerably cooler than the top of the case feels, though you can put your hand on the bottom and find the warm spot where the HD is.

You can look at the various take apart pictures on the internet to see why the top is hot, but the rest of the inside of the case will not be that hot.

I would guess that the main reason it doesn't turn off is because set top boxes generally dont turn off. My TiVO doesn't turn off, my cable box doesn't turn off. If the box is actually off then you wouldn't be able to turn it on from the remote. The sleep more is more like what the "off" is on a set top box or a remote controllable tv. I may pick up one of those "kill-a-watt" boxes to measure the consumption of the thing in standby vs playing a movie mode. Has anybody already done this?

I'm not so sure you can assume the drive is that much cooler than the case top.

The sheet metal bottom plate is thin & isolated from the drive by an adhesive pad, as well as being backed by the rubberized base. It is thus unable to contribute much to directly cooling the drive. To compensate, there is an unvented fan in the case that circulates air around the components below the top-mounted motherboard -- everything except the LSI chips (CPU, GPU, etc.) attached to the top side of that circuit board. The circulating air distributes heat among the drive, power supply, ethernet card, etc., & more importantly to the case sides, where it is transferred to the outside air.

IOW, the drive is cooled primarily by transferring heat first to air in the case, from that to the case itself, & finally to the outside air. Since heat only flows passively from higher to lower temperature masses, the drive will be at no lower a temperature than the case sides (at equilibrium), which are themselves also heated by the case top.

The analog to cable boxes etc., is not exact, since most of these devices do have an "off" mode that turns off everything except a low power subsystem that "wakes" the higher power, main systems on demand. Frequently, this includes a small, separate power supply, the basic IR receiver, a micro-controller or similar programmed device, & so on.

It may be that the Apple TV, as a comparatively low priced device, does not have such a subsystem, which would explain why Apple does not provide a more energy efficient standby mode.

Seems to me that it wants to be "on" or at least in "standby" mode (whatever that means) so that it can stay in touch with iTunes. So, I would answer the various questions here as follows:

Can you leave it plugged in all the time? Yes.
Must you leave it plugged in all the time? Not really.
Can you turn it off? Not really.

repair56,

If your Apple TV runs hotter than another box that
slow-roasts hard drives, it is possible your Apple TV
is defective. Judging by the anecdotal posts in this
forum in a number of "hot" topics, there seems to be
a lot of variation in how hot individual units run,
from "lukewarm" to "burning hot."

Some of the overly hot ones may be too hot because
they don't receive adequate ventilation or are placed
in already hot locations, but mounting evidence
suggests a few of them inherently generate unusually
large amounts of heat, perhaps because some
out-of-tolerance part found its way into their
manufacture.

You may want to take yours to an Apple Store to have
it checked out, or at least to call AppleCare about
it.

As for general cooling ideas, it is not a good one to
stack an Apple TV directly on top of another unit
that generates much heat, or to place it on a shelf
where the air around it is heated by other
components. In closed-back entertainment centers, it
might be a good idea to cut a hole in the back of the
unit & mount a "whisper" fan in it such that it
exhausts air out the back, rather than on spacers
near the top which might just recirculate hot air
through the compartment.

Any solution that draws cool air across the device
should work, though.

I have already considered everything you say before i posted.my ecenter is open back and the atv sits on a cold unused dvd player that is unplugged and cold and actually acts more like a heatsink to keep it a little cooler,but still gets to hot for my liking.This is my 2nd one and seemed like it was cooler for about 8 hrs just plugged in and turned on,but when i got the time to actually put material on the atv,it got hot,stays hot,even in standby(slightly cooler)even though i pulled the plug an let it cool,it gets hot right away when plugged back in.I really believe there will be problems,but time will tell.-thanks for response.-

When the Atv is on standby mode it uses about 17 watts. The unit does not qualify for the Energy Star label.

iMac, couple Dells Mac OS X (10.4.9) XP too

rverwij,

That is useful info, but may I ask how you discovered it & in what mode(s) it applies?

I use a Watts-Up pro device ( https://www.doubleed.com/secure.html) between the aTV and the outlet to get different power readings. When the unit is on playing movies and podcast it consumes between 17 and 19 Watts. In standby mode and after the unit was on for a couple days the power consumption dropped to 13.8 Watts.

iMac, couple Dells Mac OS X (10.4.9) XP too

Dispite the heat issues around Apple TV being constantly powered, it also sounds like the hard disk spins continuously even when put in standby. I would have thought they could have let the disk spin down when not used for a while.

Hopefully we'll not get hard disk issues because of it.

Also, the light on mine stays lit even when I put it in standby, although the instruction book says that it should go out. Anyone else experiencing the same?

Paul

I am able to place the Apple TV in standby (light goes out) but it remains on and runs quite warm. In the standby mode it mounts in iTunes and I can even sync it. Does it really turn off and consume less power ?? Can it be turned off ??