This is ridiclous
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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The power draw of these things when sleeping is negligible. They’re basically off, so there’s no real need to shut them down with any regularity.
I can use my MacBook for a whole day and still have half the battery left. Their power efficiency is genuinely remarkable.
The Mac mini draws 5 W when on, and 0.5W when sleeping
This is short-sighted. The amount of extra power the computer draws at a high power state while performing boot-up tasks makes the sleep power draw a better option. Not to mention the sleep power draw happens at off-peak hours where the grid can provide more green power vs. the dirty mid-morning peak power. The break-even point that I’ve calculated across the machines I’ve plugged into my meter is approximately 3-4 days. With a big ol’ “it depends” sticker slapped on top.
Edit: and my lazy methodology doesn’t even account for the extra energy used by the machine throughout the day when it has to cold-start various programs and tasks without any caches.
Double-edit: if you want to go the extra mile you can use the “hibernate” feature of windows after force-enabling it or the “pmset sleepmode {whateverthefuckitis} “ of macOS to split the difference. Or you can take a shower that’s literally 10 seconds shorter because heating shower water for literally only 10 seconds will use more power than any of these things. I strongly implore you to calculate your trip to the grocery store in kilowatt/hrs as well. Optimize where it matters!
Is the 5 watts on an M series Mac?
This is correct, but still, fuck apple. What if I just prefer to turn my computer off instead of putting it into sleep mode? And how exactly am I supposed to wake up my computer from sleep if the power button is inaccessible? I know macs can be configured to wake up on keyboard/mouse activity, but that makes them too easy to wake up on accident.
It would be annoying, but to be fair, it's the Mac Mini, which is small and easy to pick up. I would guess you could just tip the corner up to press the button.
I still think it's a dumb design. It's going to confuse everyday users
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I believe this is the intention. I think big companies deliberately put in confusing and bad design to "test the waters" and see if people will still buy their products. It's the same with the apple mouse charging on the bottom, or why companies keep making their logos uglier with each iteration. It's a psy-op to condition the masses into accepting worse products without complaining.
Poke your finger under the corner and push up. It doesn't take a rocket surgen to figure out how they want you to hit this button. You can tell from their promo images that they designed the base to make the computer sit up enough for this.
Why does it matter? It's just gonna go back to sleep in 30 seconds if you don't mess with it.
You know this thing is tiny, right? It’ll be shockingly easy to pick up and press the button. Even with cables hanging out of it.
I use a 2014 mini with all cables hanging out the back, and it’s really easy to pick up.
A key on the keyboard turns it on afaik. You don’t need to press the power button.