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Saint1976
Elite 3

New power settings on updated app

A question (grumble/rant) to those that worked on the new update to the service.

 

What's going on with the power settings for stand alone NowTv devices?

 

Previous iterations of the app have powered down the box after 10 minutes of inactivity (as long as you were in the menu screen) resulting in the power light going out. Now the box seems to be permanently on and only goes to sleep after 4 hours (the only option you can select in the settings).

 

Also, just switching on my television forces the box to start up from its long awaited sleep and switch the TV's input to the box, regardless if I want to use it or not.

 

I appreciate that as a single device the power consumption is low (the best resource I can find shows it's about 3.5 watts streaming and 2 watts idle) but collectively (how many devices are there in the UK - 200,000? 500,000?) that is an enormous amount of energy when we are in an age of not wasting energy and contributing to needless co2 omissions. 

 

Sky claim that they are reducing carbon emissions as a company to zero by 2030 "To get there, we’ll cut the carbon emissions created by our business, by our suppliers across the world and by the use of our tech products, by at least 50%" but the latest update seems to counter that statement by increasing needless energy consumption.

 

https://www.skygroup.sky/sky-zero


@Karl-F @Simon-J can this be fed back to the development team for an answer?

24 REPLIES 24
schnapps
Legend 5
Legend 5

Hi @Saint1976 

 

I reported this myself plus other items that i wasn't happy with during the trial on more than one occasion and didn't even get a reply response and went on deaf ears.

 

NowTV Trialists are just bug testers and have no input how NowTV should operate or how any new layout should look or feel 😠.

Anonymous User
Not applicable

I'm finding this incredibly frustrating too. I try to be energy and environmentally conscious so seeing that white light on the Now TV box when its not in use is very annoying. I appreciate the energy usage is low but every little helps. It also make me paranoid that after we've finished watching something on the Kids channels or YouTube with my daughter that we've forgotten to press home and something is still streaming, to the point where i then have to flick back to the box to check.

 

I really hope that customers' concerns are listened to and they revert back to how the standby mode used to work.

Simon-J
Community Manager
Community Manager

@schnapps  @Saint1976  @Anonymous User 

 

Hi guys,

 

Just to let you know I've raised these concerns to the team responsible for the update and will update you as soon as I have anything back.

 

Thanks

 

Simon

schnapps
Legend 5
Legend 5

Hi @Saint1976 @Simon-J @Anonymous User 

 

Seems like NowTV have listened to customers concerns, where i have just noticed that my NowTV 4K Smart box white power light has gone off when not in use and the screen is gone back to the low power screen saver mode with the floating NowTV icon instead of those annoying NowTV adverts 😀.

 

Haven't checked any of my other NowTV branded devices yet in the house (apart from the Lounge 4K Smart box).

Saint1976
Elite 3

Hi @schnapps did your 4k box do an update? Both my black boxes are still showing the ads an on for the 4 hours before shutting down. I checked for an update and there isn't one available.

schnapps
Legend 5
Legend 5

Hi @Saint1976 

 

No update was received or forced onto my NowTV 4K box and was using the box first thing this morning, then went out of the house for a couple of hours and when i came back noticed the white power light on the front of the box was off.

 

Then when i switched on the television screen i was greeted with the floating NowTV logo screen saver instead of the NowTV what's on advertisements.

 

Maybe it was a glitch on my box, i will know tomorrow morning when i wake up and switch on my box and television in the Lounge (unless i can find a gap in my NowTV viewing schedule this afternoon / evening not to use my box to trigger the power down mode).

schnapps
Legend 5
Legend 5

Hi @Saint1976 

 

When i woke up this morning the white light on the front of my NowTV 4K Smart Box was off and when switching on my television on the correct HDMI input source to my box i was greeted with the bouncing NowTV Logo screen saver.

 

Went into my box settings and under Power the "Turn off after 4 hours" check box was unticked and Screen saver wait time was set to 30 minutes.

 

The box is running software version 9.2.3 build 5136-68.

 

Don't know if the bug that i reported to NowTV on Saturday morning with regards to pressing the directional keys or Home or back button on the NowTV smart remote which sends you to the My Apps screen page has any bearing on this or not.

 

 

Anonymous User
Not applicable

Good news, my box is now back to "normal" and goes off with the bouncing Now TV logo after short period. Thanks for listening to us!

Saint1976
Elite 3

@schnapps @Anonymous User 

 

Well, it's all a bit of a mess with my boxes. Watched the F1 Sunday and then backed out to the menu and switched inputs to BBC for the cricket. After about half an hour (I wasn't paying attention) the light went out so I switched over the input. No bouncing logo, just 'no signal - check your connection'.

 

Watched Fox last night, backed out to the main menu and when I woke up this morning the box was still on showing the home screen.

 

When I get a chance tonight I'm going to see if it makes a difference using the box with the old style app instead of the new UI.