Allow 12V trigger to be controlled by standby mode status instead of playback

[bobster26]

I started using a WiiM Pro Plus four days ago. I'm hoping it can replace an old preamp.

According to the article linked below, the 12v trigger raises the voltage music starts playing, and reduces the voltage 2.5 minutes after music stops playing.

How to use 12V trigger on WiiM Pro?

WiiM Pro has a 12V trigger output with a current rating of 220 mA that can be connected to an amplifier with a 12V trigger input. This brings an amplifier out of standby mode when the music starts playing, reducing the time it takes to become act...

faq.wiimhome.com

Please add the option of instead having the voltage raised only when the WiiM awakens from standby mode and lowered when it enters standby mode (whether by pressing the button on the remote or using the Standby timer in the app), making this independent of playback mode.

This is how my preamp works - when you turn it on, it turns on the power amp. When you turn it off, it turns off the power amp. This makes much more sense.

With the current implementation, the first few seconds of music is cut off due to the time it takes the amplifier to turn on. Even if a delay is added to playback to compensate, I still strongly prefer that the trigger function be tied to Standby mode instead of playback. Perhaps there could be a choice of trigger modes.

EDIT: Also, please add to the WiiM Home app a button for entering/exiting standby mode, analogous to the one on the remote that comes with the WiiM Pro Plus.

EDIT 2: The WiiM Pro Plus does turn the amp off when it enters Standby mode via a press of the "Standby" button on the remote, so this part of the functionality is OK. But this makes it all the more confusing that pressing the button to wake it from Standby mode doesn't turn the amp on.

I submitted a ticket about this and am posting here to cover my bases. It is a feature request forum, after all.

Thanks!

 

[bobster26]

Hi bobster26,

Great suggestion regarding an addition to the trigger mode! I'll bring this up with our Engineering team for potential implementation. Stay tuned for updates!

Great to hear that you'll mention this to the engineering team - thank you!

After five more days of use since my original post, I've concluded that the 2.5 minute shutoff makes the 12V trigger unusable for me. There have been too many times when it turned off the amp when I didn't want it to, and when music or dialogue was cut off when re-starting playback after an un-desired shutoff (I use this sound system both for music and for video).

This has me considering returning it. I have until the end of the month to decide.

 

[PeterMann]

There have been too many times when it turned off the amp when I didn't want it to, and when music or dialogue was cut off when re-starting playback after an un-desired shutoff

Aside from the larger question of adding configurability, I’m also having this particular problem — I use the Wiim for all manner of films and television playback and I often pause something for longer than the 2.5 minutes, resulting in having to rewind. I’m using active monitors so I don’t have the same kind of problem those using say valve amps do with rapid on/off cycling, but it is annoying.

 

[serak]

+1
That would be great improvement

 

[Burns]

Hi bobster26,

Great suggestion regarding an addition to the trigger mode! I'll bring this up with our Engineering team for potential implementation. Stay tuned for updates!

Do you have any answers for us yet?

 

[bobster26]

I returned my WiiM Pro Plus. The return window was closing, and I didn't want to wait any longer to see if this feature might be added.

There were other problems too:

Even after disconnecting the trigger cable from the power amp, I continued to get audio drop outs in Zoom meetings. When the presenter paused, sometimes the beginnings of sentences or words got cut off, as if there were a noise gate. When I reverted to my previous setup, without the Pro Plus, the dropouts stopped, so Zoom's audio processing wasn't the issue, nor was my internet bandwidth or local network speed. (I wonder if this issue might have something to do with the automatic input detection...)

Edit: audio drop outs when using the optical input were reported last year in this thread:

WiiM Pro Optical Input Audio Drop Outs

I’m a recent new owner of a Wiim Pro. I’m experiencing audio drop outs when watching TV with the TV connected to the optical input of the Pro. The drop outs last a second or two and seem to occur more often when the Pro comes out of standby for the first few minutes but then do occur again...

forum.wiimhome.com

There were also problems displaying album art from the music library on my NAS.

 

[WiiM Support]

Do you have any answers for us yet?

Hi Burns, Team

We are actively developing a new feature that includes a trigger based on the standby mode. We're currently targeting a release date around February 10th. Please stay tuned for further announcements, and we appreciate your interest in this upcoming enhancement.

 

[Wischmopf]

Hi Burns, Team

We are actively developing a new feature that includes a trigger based on the standby mode. We're currently targeting a release date around February 10th. Please stay tuned for further announcements, and we appreciate your interest in this upcoming enhancement.

Dear @WiiM Support , your fast development pipeline and frequent deployments are only two of many reasons why your devices are amazing! Please continue the good work. Highly appreciated!!

 

[Burns]

Update. Only 5 min?

 

[daydreamer]

I am happy that the latest firmware provides trigger_out=12V when powering on from the remote. That solves one part of the puzzle.

It would be even better if the trigger timeout could respect the "Enter standby menu in" setup configuration value instead of being fixed at 5 minutes. From the user's point of view, there is no logical reason to distinguish between two different timeouts back to standby.

 

[bobster26]

It would be even better if the trigger timeout could respect the "Enter standby menu in" setup configuration value instead of being fixed at 5 minutes.

Yes, that was in my original post, and in post 26 @WiiM Support said "We are actively developing a new feature that includes a trigger based on the standby mode." We'll see. Hopefully this update is just the beginning. A fixed 5 minute shutoff is still too short for me.

I returned my WiiM Pro Plus, but am keeping an eye on this because I might consider the upcoming WiiM Ultra.

 

[Wischmopf]

I am happy that the latest firmware provides trigger_out=12V when powering on from the remote. That solves one part of the puzzle.

It would be even better if the trigger timeout could respect the "Enter standby menu in" setup configuration value instead of being fixed at 5 minutes. From the user's point of view, there is no logical reason to distinguish between two different timeouts back to standby.

Agree! Hopefully the 5min feature was some kind of hotfix. Looking forward to respecting standby settings for the 12V trigger signal.

 

[Burns]

Hi Burns, Team

We are actively developing a new feature that includes a trigger based on the standby mode. We're currently targeting a release date around February 10th. Please stay tuned for further announcements, and we appreciate your interest in this upcoming enhancement.

I also hope that the current extension of the time to 5 minutes was done quickly as a nod to us, but it does not finish the work on this topic and ultimately it will coincide with the sleep stands. WiiM goes to sleep and puts other devices to sleep

WiiM Support, thanks anyway for listening to your users!

 

[WiiM Support]

I am happy that the latest firmware provides trigger_out=12V when powering on from the remote. That solves one part of the puzzle.

It would be even better if the trigger timeout could respect the "Enter standby menu in" setup configuration value instead of being fixed at 5 minutes. From the user's point of view, there is no logical reason to distinguish between two different timeouts back to standby.

Hi Team,

With this update, you'll gain more control over the 'trigger out' feature, which will now respond directly to your device's standby status. Here's how it works:

Exiting Standby Mode: When your device wakes up from standby, the 'trigger out' will be set to high immediately, helping to wake up your amplifier.
Entering Standby Mode: Conversely, when your device goes into standby mode, the 'trigger out' will switch to low, making your amplifier go to sleep too.

The 5-minute timeout after playback stops is designed as a fallback mechanism. In scenarios where the standby mode is configured to 'never', preventing the device from entering standby, the 'trigger out' will remain high. This ensures that even if the device remains active indefinitely, the 'trigger out' signal will put your connected amplifier into sleep after 5-mins timeout.

I hope this clarification helps you understand the functionality better and enhances your experience with our product. If you have any more questions or need further assistance, please don't hesitate to ask. We're here to help!

 

[Burns]

Hi Team,

With this update, you'll gain more control over the 'trigger out' feature, which will now respond directly to your device's standby status. Here's how it works:

Exiting Standby Mode: When your device wakes up from standby, the 'trigger out' will be set to high immediately, helping to wake up your amplifier.
Entering Standby Mode: Conversely, when your device goes into standby mode, the 'trigger out' will switch to low, making your amplifier go to sleep too.

The 5-minute timeout after playback stops is designed as a fallback mechanism. In scenarios where the standby mode is configured to 'never', preventing the device from entering standby, the 'trigger out' will remain high. This ensures that even if the device remains active indefinitely, the 'trigger out' signal will put your connected amplifier into sleep after 5-mins timeout.

I hope this clarification helps you understand the functionality better and enhances your experience with our product. If you have any more questions or need further assistance, please don't hesitate to ask. We're here to help!

I don't understand. I have standby mode set to 10 minutes. The trigger turns the device off after 5 minutes anyway. This is not a section according to your guidelines. I will restart the device and check again.

 

[harkpabst]

Exiting Standby Mode: When your device wakes up from standby, the 'trigger out' will be set to high immediately, helping to wake up your amplifier.
Entering Standby Mode: Conversely, when your device goes into standby mode, the 'trigger out' will switch to low, making your amplifier go to sleep too.

The 5-minute timeout after playback stops is designed as a fallback mechanism. In scenarios where the standby mode is configured to 'never', preventing the device from entering standby, the 'trigger out' will remain high. This ensures that even if the device remains active indefinitely, the 'trigger out' signal will put your connected amplifier into sleep after 5-mins timeout.

Sounds good so far, but isn't there one piece missing, still?

Will the trigger out be set to high again, if music playback is resumed? Otherwise the amplifier would not wake up again, if it doesn't support auto-on by itself (in which case the trigger connection probably wasn't needed in the first place).

 

[WiiM Support]

I don't understand. I have standby mode set to 10 minutes. The trigger turns the device off after 5 minutes anyway. This is not a section according to your guidelines. I will restart the device and check again.

Great question! Let me clarify how the standby timeout and trigger functionality currently works, and also share a potential improvement we're considering.

Current Behavior:
When you set a standby timeout (let's say 10 minutes, for example), the device currently defaults to turning the trigger low after 5 minutes. This happens because the system is designed to select the shorter duration between the standby timeout and a default 5-minute period. You can observe this behavior by setting the standby timeout to less than 5 minutes or by manually entering standby mode using your remote. In these scenarios, the trigger will respond more directly to your actions.

Proposed Enhancement:
We're contemplating a more intuitive approach where the system would always honor your specified standby timeout setting, provided it's not set to 'Never'. For situations where the timeout is set to 'Never', we could introduce a default timeout period after which the trigger would turn low. This would ensure a more predictable and user-aligned behavior, aligning the trigger response more closely with your standby settings.

I hope this clears things up! We're always looking to improve based on user feedback, so if you have any suggestions or further questions, please don't hesitate to share. Your input is invaluable in helping us enhance your experience.

 

[WiiM Support]

Sounds good so far, but isn't there one piece missing, still?

Will the trigger out be set to high again, if music playback is resumed? Otherwise the amplifier would not wake up again, if it doesn't support auto-on by itself (in which case the trigger connection probably wasn't needed in the first place).

Certainly, it supports the auto-on. The trigger out will be set to high again if music playback is resumed and the device exits from the standby mode. Please give it a try and let us know your experience with it.

 

[Burns]

The second solution sounds sensible.

 

[Burns]

Certainly, it supports the auto-on. The trigger out will be set to high again if music playback is resumed and the device exits from the standby mode. Please give it a try and let us know your experience with it.

I confirm. Now it works as I wrote and not as Wiim support wrote. The device always triggers the trigger after five minutes, even though I restarted the device and tested it for 10 and 20 minutes in standby mode.

 

[Brantome]

I confirm. Now it works as I wrote and not as Wiim support wrote. The device always triggers the trigger after five minutes, even though I restarted the device and tested it for 10 and 20 minutes in standby mode.

Submit a ticket so WiiM can verify/rectify that