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

I don't think so.... I thing all standby does is stop outputting video to your TV. That is about it. The hard drive continues to spin in standby mode and everything also goes on as usual. I think to keep the form factor of the unit small, Apple didn't incorporate anything that is required for the device to work. A seperate power supply for standby mode and processor etc. would require a larger unit.
I'm not too worried, if after a year everybody's unit is dying, I'm sure Apple will do something about it. It has a one year warranty for now.

After reading all the stuff..

Apple TV should be able to be turned off.

Why?

1. It is unacceptable for a electronic device to be wasting energy (any amount) when not in use. Or at least nothing more than a blinking LED. Although you could be able to pay the bill, no one like that attitude anymore.. think it again

2. Hard drive spinnig 24/7 reduces its life considerably. Why such a feature? Sync 24/7.. what for?. Unplugging the cord everyday a couple of times, might do the same for the HDD.

3. Turning it off manually via menu or via remote shall be easily implemented. So, let's do it in next firmware update, Apple guys!

By the way boys, please turn on Product Feedback for Apple TV now that the thing is launched, so I don't have to write in the deep realms of a forum how ****** I am about the fact that the fine device of yours I bought is wasting precious energy I don't want to spare, given that in my house we don' want to do such thing although we could pay for the bill of the whole building, ok? And for the record, if the thing brakes down because the HDD fried, well, we wil not buy another one.

Got it?!

P.s.: I am sure Apple people will have this issue solved soon. I am positive. It makes no sense.



MacBook pro Mac OS X (10.4.9)

That looks like a reliable device! A pity not more Apple TV users have watt meters so we could compare energy use among their units ....

I would have thought they could have let
the disk spin down when not used for a while.

In normal use, this would slow down menu response a lot (3.5 second spin up time for the OEM drive), but I can't see why standby mode could not allow this.

In fact, standby mode seems to be essentially no different than normal mode, other than that it (maybe?) turns off the LED indicator.

3. Turning it off manually via menu or via remote
shall be easily implemented.

Not necessarily. As has been mentioned repeatedly, special circuitry is required for electronic equipment to manage energy-efficient "sleep" modes. The same is true to turn them off (or on) other than by manual, mechanical means (IOW, with a physical power switch).

I guess a lot of people don't realize this because so many products do include these circuits that they don't give it a second thought, but if you do you should soon realize that "soft" power switches are electronic devices themselves & therefore require a power source of their own. If you design them to turn themselves off, or make that the default state, there would be no way to turn the device on!

Guys, your talking like the AppleTV is an old 1980s Television!

The AppleTV uses the same parts found in typical notebook computers today: low power Intel Dothan CPU, NVIDIA G72M mobile graphics accel, 2.5" HD. All three of these have simple power management built in that cut power to a small fraction of full power.

As others have pointed out the AppleTV in standby burns > 14-watts (from my WattsUp meter). The extra power burned while it is "on" seems to just be dynamic switching power to me.

As an EE I have to echo what others have said:

1.) Spin down the HD in stand-by. This is harmless and notebook computers do it all the time. The extra few seconds to resume from stand-by during a remote sync or power on seem trivial to me.

2.) Put the NVIDIA G72M GPU in sleep mode when the display is turned off. It seems hard to believe from the WattsUp meter data that this is happening.

3.) Use the Intel Dothan CPU sleep instruction in the OS X idle loop instead of just buzzing away waiting for something to do. I mean really, how hard is that?

If all three of these were done in SW that would probably cut standby down to < 5-watts. That would qualify for the Energy Star rating for computing devices.

Come on guys please fix this? It can't really be that hard? Personally my wife and I won't buy the second/third AppleTV that we planned on getting if this isn't fixed.

Windows XP

I have left on my AppleTV since I set it up. Yes there there is some heat from the unit but my set up has pretty good circulation.

By the way, the Extreme that supports N also generates quite a bit of heat ...

First of all, nobody besides Apple knows exactly what the CPU in the Apple TV is. The best guesses -- & they are only guesses because the CPU is unmarked -- are that it is based on the Pentium M Ultra Low Voltage architecture (IOW, Dothan), but it may well be a custom version built for Apple. Assuming a strong family resemblance, it should have many of the same dynamic power saving features as the laptop version, but we really can't assume it is practical for the OS to put it into a "deep" sleep mode unless we know the details of both the overall hardware & software implementation, which we don't.

For instance, the Apple TV uses a number of parts not found in notebooks (like the HDMI chip) & runs a number of processes they don't (like Watchdog).

Regarding your items 1 & 2, it appears the device does allow them to spin down or sleep, depending on sync state. See Apple TV: About standby mode for details.

A solution another person posted on this site was to plug in a usb fan/laptop coolpad into ATV usb port. It doesn't solve the turn off issue but hey whilst its on its running cooler !

A device like Apple TV (also,satellite receivers and cable receivers, etc.)that do not have an on/off switch were designed to be left ON ALL THE TIME!

Components like hard drive(s), circuit boards and their components that go into hardware device(s) have MTBF ratings of approximately 100,000 hours. This means that an APPLE TV that is never powered off has a very good probability of providing for over 4,000 days of service or approximately 11 years of service before it fails!

Believe it or not by powering a device on/off or putting in standby, you actually lower the MTBF. Similar to light bulbs, the more on/off cycles lowers the MTBF rating of a light bulb. With respects to cost of running Apple TV 24/7/365 based on my electric rates--about 13 cents per month.

Believe it or not!

iMac + MacMini Mac OS X (10.4.9) Cinema Displays

Components like hard drive(s), circuit boards and
their components that go into hardware device(s) have
MTBF ratings of approximately 100,000 hours.

The rated component life (hours) for the drive in the Apple TV is 20,000 powered on hours. (Refer to Fujitsu | MHW2040AT | Full Specifications.) Many electronic components age more quickly at elevated temperatures, particularly certain types of capacitors & mechanical assemblies like platter motors & stepper armatures. As you approach maximum rated temperatures, you must de-rate components, both for power handling & for time to failure.

Believe it or not by powering a device on/off or
putting in standby, you actually lower the MTBF.

It is not that simple. One contributor to failure is high inrush (start up) currents, characteristic of certain devices with non-linear impedance curves. Induction motors & tungsten light bulb filaments are examples. However, this can be mitigated by "soft start" current-limiting circuitry. (This is commonly accomplished in drive motors.)

Another failure source is mechanical stress caused by thermal expansion/contraction cycles. While you might think that this can be minimized by avoiding power cycling, in reality electronic components experience large thermal swings due to normal duty cycles, for example when a CPU decompresses a chunk of H.264 content, then idles until another CPU-intensive task is scheduled. Think of it like stop & go traffic vs. constant speed driving: the former is much more stressful for engines & associated components. It's the same for computers, but on a much faster millisecond time scale.

Basically, the best way to avoid failure is to balance power on & off intervals -- IOW, don't power up & power down so frequently that startup stresses outweigh the benefits of stress free, no power periods.

Totally agree with your informed responce. However, Fujitsu does also refer to a MTBF of 300,000 hours powered on. Thus, based on optimum environmental conditions-some of these drives just might last beyond the 34 month life span powered on.

Obviously my post was not based on specific component specifications, but rather consumer electronic device experience starting with an 8 track player purchased in the early 1960's. The unit still powers up and plays tape(s) but obviously the tapes have degraded to an almost non audible level. The original Com 64, Mac, IBM PC & IBM PC Jr. purchased 1979-1982 all still turn on but original operating systems on some via floppy 5 1/4 disks are beyond their serviceable life based on environmental factors over the years.

In closing, somewhere in the great state of Texas still burns a light bulb from the early 1900's. (Not aware that it has gone out yet!) I will challenge my original Apple TV to be powered on for as long as it goes. However, I do concur that per your comments that a balance between power on & off intervals is the optimum way to guarantee for most ATV units the longest life.

iMac + MacMini Mac OS X (10.4.9) Cinema Displays

That adhesive pad is a special silicon pad that is designed to transfer heat. I have used my ATV with the case off and the drive runs very cool, so I don't see it as a culprit in producing much heat to the ATV.

By the way, in case anyone is interested, I have a kill-a-watt meter that measures the amount of watts (as well as other parameters) being used by a device plugged into it. The ATV is pulling at max 24 watts while on. In standby mode, it is pulling 15 watts.

Glor

The adhesive pad may be able to transfer a little heat energy to the bottom sheet metal plate, but that plate isn't very effective as a heat sink: it's thin, has little surface area, & is backed by the rubberized base pad. Compare that to a normal heat sink: thick, finned for large surface area, & certainly not covered by anything that obstructs air flow to it.

BTW, special silicones (not silicon) are used in thermally conductive pads because of their stability at elevated temperatures & ability to fill microscopic air gaps between mating surfaces, not for their thermal conductivity alone. Still air is actually a good thermal insulator, so the polymer is used to displace the air, which would otherwise make the surface a poor thermal conductor. The pads are optimally no thicker than needed to assure good contact between more thermally conductive masses, & generally are under mechanical compression for the same reason.

The drive should run fairly cool in free air, since it only dissipates a few watts at most -- it is being in a small, closed case with other heat producing components that is the potential problem, since the un-vented fan will tend to bring everything to the same temperature.

There isn't a lot of mystery here for anyone with experience in electronic packaging design. What Apple has done is pretty obvious: optimized more heavily for silent operation, compactness, & esthetics than for high heat dissipation & low operating temperatures. That doesn't make the design bad, just not perfect for everyone.

Apple TV has to remain on at all times in order for automatic syncing to work properly. Also, as mentioned before, if you want the thing to be able to be turned on via the remote, it needs to be "on" in some form or another, listening for that signal from the remote. All VCRs, DVDs, Cable Boxes, etc. are "on" technically, as long as they are plugged in.

As far as how much power is drawn during standby and the hard drive continuously spinning, that may have to do with whether or not there's an active iTunes somewhere on the network continuously talking to the Apple TV. Remember, iTunes needs to send a signal to Apple TV every now and then to compare its contents with sync database. That requires the hard drive to spin. If a sync of new files is going on, of course, the hard drive will be spinning as well, and heat will be generated, even though you are not "using" it. When all of the computers with iTunes on the network are off, the Apple TV should be able to run at even lower power. I haven't tested this, but try quitting iTunes for all your connected computers, and see if that wattage goes down and the hard drive eventually spins down. Perhaps this hasn't been fully optimized yet, and Apple will fix it in a software update. Seems likely to me.

For those of you who are not getting the LED light to go out, my guess is something is wrong with your unit, or it's talking to your iTunes and you just don't know it. I'd have to do some testing to be sure. Mine sure goes out when I press power for four seconds or so, and my iTunes is not syncing anything.

Anyone know if Apple TV will go into standby automatically after a period of inactivity? Mine doesn't seem to. That would be another easy way to cut back on power consumption. iPod does this. Can't see why that would be hard to implement.

Either way, I figure most of us will buy a new Apple TV long before the current generation dies from over use. The software update menu is there for a reason. I'm sure Apple is working on ways to make it more efficient.