# Standby: good or bad idea?



## Randy No Arms (May 18, 2018)

Hi,

I've got a BOLT and a Harmony remote. I recently swapped out an old Premier for the BOLT and only just told the Harmony about it. What I noticed is that with the BOLT, I now have a PowerToggle button that the Premier didn't have.

Essentially, this button puts the BOLT into standby. I already had the BOLT going to standby via power saving settings and the Harmony would wake it when I needed it woken. 

The question I have is, is standby a good idea for a TiVo? Does it extend the life of the hardware or does it hurt the box because it has to spin up things from sleep?

Thanks!


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

If you would like to get many opinions on power saving, just do a search. I tried it and it returns 50 pages of results.

I never use power saving or Standby except on Mini, where I always use it.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Yep, never use it on my Roamio Pro and wouldn't on a Bolt either (configured the one for my son that way). Minimal power savings and there have been bugs with standby mode (and of course debate on drive spin-down/spin-up  ).

Scott


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

HerronScott said:


> Yep, never use it on my Roamio Pro and wouldn't on a Bolt either (configured the one for my son that way). Minimal power savings and there have been bugs with standby mode (and of course debate on drive spin-down/spin-up  ).


Succinctly summarized.


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## GaryD9 (Mar 1, 2002)

The premiere has a power toggle as well. All TiVo's (at least since series 2) have supported the same power toggle IR code (though the button on the peanut long ago disappeared.) I've actually copied that IR code from/to different remotes over the years.

Anyway, I'll give a different point of view... I've been using TiVo's since Series 2 and I've always put my TiVo boxes into standby when I turn off the TV. I've never experienced any problems doing this.

My reasoning has always been that a TiVo in standby (unlike a TiVo left on) doesn't record the 30 minute Live TV buffer per channel. That in turn lowers the wear and tear on the HDD (if the TiVo isn't otherwise recording something such as a suggestion, season pass (one pass), etc.) It also lowers power usage by the device slightly for both the HDD and any video decoding hardware.

Does it really make much difference? No idea. The difference is probably a lot less these days compared to when the TiVo had to compress and decompress analog signals. As long as there's never been any harm in putting it in standby, however, it always seemed reckless to increase wear/tear and use more electricity when I don't need to.


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## Randy No Arms (May 18, 2018)

Thanks for the replies!

I did do a search for "standby" but the top of the posts in BOLT were about how to "use" it rather than opinion.

In all honesty, I was leaning towards using standby because of HDD and fan noise. Not to say the BOLT is loud but it is very noticeable when everything else on the wall is off and trying to sleep. Standby seems to help with that unless something is actively being recorded.

I also noticed that in the new experience it's much easier to get to Standby in the UX so if it's harmful, TiVo will have some 'splaining to do.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Randy No Arms said:


> Thanks for the replies!
> I did do a search for "standby" but the top of the posts in BOLT were about how to "use" it rather than opinion.
> In all honesty, I was leaning towards using standby because of HDD and fan noise. Not to say the BOLT is loud but it is very noticeable when everything else on the wall is off and trying to sleep. Standby seems to help with that unless something is actively being recorded.
> I also noticed that in the new experience it's much easier to get to Standby in the UX so if it's harmful, TiVo will have some 'splaining to do.


I've never had a problem with Standby except for bugs in Hydra, most of which have been fixed. My TiVo boxes are silent from 10 feet. As for Search, use "power saving". You'll get a better idea.

I wondered why they made Standby so easy on Hydra too. Seems out of character.


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## GaryD9 (Mar 1, 2002)

Randy No Arms said:


> I also noticed that in the new experience it's much easier to get to Standby in the UX so if it's harmful, TiVo will have some 'splaining to do.


That's VERY true. I used to have to use a sequence to power off the tivo (liveTV + power toggle.) If the thing wasn't on liveTV, it wouldn't go into standby. With the BOLT on TE4, just sending the power toggle IR code works fine - even from within a menu.


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## bkc56 (Apr 29, 2001)

GaryD9 said:


> Anyway, I'll give a different point of view... I've been using TiVo's since Series 2 and I've always put my TiVo boxes into standby when I turn off the TV. I've never experienced any problems doing this.
> 
> My reasoning has always been that a TiVo in standby (unlike a TiVo left on) doesn't record the 30 minute Live TV buffer per channel. That in turn lowers the wear and tear on the HDD (if the TiVo isn't otherwise recording something such as a suggestion, season pass (one pass), etc.) It also lowers power usage by the device slightly for both the HDD and any video decoding hardware.


I've been doing this since Series 1, for the same reasoning, and with the same results (no problems).


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Not a bad idea but a waste of time. Disk is still spinning. Minimal power savings. Not worth turning off and on.


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## Tony_T (Nov 2, 2017)

Harmony can be set to Standby Tivo when TV is turned off, so no time involved.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

In the past Standby was a bad idea when a Mini was used since there was a delay, usually a BSC, when the Mini needed a tuner. However, with Hydra I detect no delay. Has Standby changed for Hydra or just been improved?


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

TonyD79 said:


> Not a bad idea but a waste of time. Disk is still spinning. Minimal power savings. Not worth turning off and on.


There were bugs where the disk was still spinning, then they fixed those bugs. When people measured power consumption during the period with the bug (not realizing there was a bug), the power savings were minimal. After the fixed it, there was some power savings, not huge, but more than the .5 watt with the bug. I don't remember what it was on each hardware, but it was proabably 2-3 watt savings, per tivo.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

HerronScott said:


> Yep, never use it on my Roamio Pro and wouldn't on a Bolt either (configured the one for my son that way). Minimal power savings and there have been bugs with standby mode (and of course debate on drive spin-down/spin-up  ).
> 
> Scott


I use high power saving mode on all my TiVos. If for nothing else because it will prevent recording issues with an Emergency alert.

I've had zero issues using standby, every since they enabled a power saving feature that shut down the hard drive when not recording. And I also have no need for what is in a live buffer.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

TonyD79 said:


> Not a bad idea but a waste of time. Disk is still spinning. Minimal power savings. Not worth turning off and on.


The hard drive stops spinning on my Bolts and ROamios in High power saving mode. As long as nothing is being watched and no recordings are being made.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> The hard drive stops spinning on my Bolts and ROamios in High power saving mode. As long as nothing is being watched and no recordings are being made.


Just to augment what you said, they stop spinning on medium as well (but there have been bugs in the past where they didn't stop spinning)


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