Let sleeping Kindles lie

Let sleeping Kindles lie

Kindles have three power states: awake, asleep, and off.

That can be confusing, certainly.  Paperbooks just have one. 

Computers do typically have multiple power states, but not everybody who reads a Kindle is familiar with that…and the Kindle isn’t like a laptop.

Here’s the basic idea:

When the Kindle is off, it is using no power.  It’s not doing anything…not downloading books and updates, not “indexing” your books, nothing.  The screen will be blank.

When the Kindle is on, you’ll be seeing your material on the Kindle.  It may be the homescreen (your list of books), the words of a book, a website, and so on. 

When the Kindle is asleep, you’ll see one of the “sleep mode images”.  Many people refer to those as “screensavers”, although that’s not technically accurate.  While it is asleep, it can carry on some activities.  For example, if you start the Kindle reading out loud to you and it goes to sleep, it will keep reading.

So, reading those three choices, you might figure it is best to turn the Kindle off when you aren’t reading on it or listening to it, right?

Actually, that may not be the case.

Here’s the thing.  A sleeping Kindle takes very little energy (unless it is indexing or you have the Whispernet on and it downloads an update or it is playing audio).   You might think it takes energy to maintain that sleep mode picture.  That’s one of the big advantages of the E Ink technology that the Kindle uses.  Once a picture (or a “page” of words) is drawn, it takes no energy to maintain it.

That’s very different from a computer with a backlit screen.  That takes constant energy to maintain an image.  The E Ink screen maintains the image with no energy loss.

Would off or sleep be the same, then?

The problem is that it takes the Kindle quite a bit of battery power to turn off and then turn back on again.  Sleeping and waking it up again doesn’t have the same energy cost.

Amazon itself says:

“Sleeping your Kindle will extend battery life and also lock all of the keys and buttons so you don’t inadvertently press one while not using your Kindle.”

I’ve seen them specifically say that it is generally better to sleep it than to turn it off.

Generally…if it was going to be unused for a year, it would be better to turn it off. 

But what if it was unused for a week?

That’s a guideline I’ve never seen.  It’s a little bit like the old line attributed to Winston Churchill.  He supposedly said to a woman at a party, “Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?” and she said yes.  He said, “Would you sleep with me for two pounds?” and she said, indignantly, “No!  What kind of woman do you think I am?” His famous response: “We have already established that, madam.  Now we are just negotiating over price.” 

So, should your Kindle sleep for a year of non-use?  Probably not.  Should it sleep for a week of non-use?  My guess is yes.

 I use my Kindle every day, and almost never turn it off.  I will turn it off if it is having some problem, so that it can stop working on everything.  That’s similar to what you have to do with computers sometimes.  It doesn’t happen very often.

How do you choose the power mode and know which one it is in?

On everything except a Kindle 1, it’s how long you hold the power switch.

If you hold it to your right for about a second and release, the Kindle will go to sleep.  You’ll know because you’ll see one of the sleep mode images.

If you hold the switch to your right for four to seven seconds and release, it will turn off.  You’ll know because the screen is blank.  I believe it is officially four seconds on the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX, and seven seconds on the Kindle 3.

To wake it up or turn it on, hold the power button to your right for about a second.

There is one more thing you can do with the power button, and that’s a restart. 

Note: if your Kindle is responsive, it is better to use the “soft reset” than the hard reset (using the power switch).  That’s Home-Menu-Settings-Menu-Restart.

That’s an even deeper wipe than turning it off.  For example, when you restart the Kindle, it may forget what the current date and time is.  It won’t do that when it just goes to sleep.  Restarting can be good, if it’s frozen, for example.

To restart, hold the power button to your right for a full fifteen seconds (longer is okay).  When you let go, you’ll see it restart itself.  That may take a minute or so.

With a K1, it’s different.  There is a power switch on the back that you use to turn it on and off.  To sleep it, you press Alt+Aa.  You wake it up using the same key combination.  To restart a K1, you have to remove the back (it comes right off) and use something like a paperclip to press a button that you can access through a small hole in the back of the device.  I like the keyboard combo for sleep on the K1, but I don’t like the reset and on and off as well as the way you do it on the more recent models.

You may also hear about doing a “factory reset” or a reset.  That’s a very different thing, and irrevocably wipes out a bunch of stuff on your Kindle (for example, it will delete all your personal files).

I know, I know, you don’t have to worry about any of that with a paperbook.  It’s really not much to worry about with a Kindle.  If you do nothing, it will go to sleep by itself in ten minutes (I think that’s the right interval).  That timeframe for sleep is not currently adjustable, by the way).  I usually do put mine to sleep so I don’t accidentally turn a page setting it down. 

My advice: let sleeping Kindles lie. 

Thanks to BSI (Bezos Street Irregular) member Periwinkle Blue for suggesting this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.