Remote

[Wiimer]

How long had your Amp been unplugged for before restarting it..We came to the conclusion that the behaviour changed after the Amp had been unplugged for a longer time.

It will be 5 minutes at most, but since I'm about to have dinner, I'll power off Ultra for an hour or so to check it out.

 

[Wiimer]

How long had your Amp been unplugged for before restarting it..We came to the conclusion that the behaviour changed after the Amp had been unplugged for a longer time.

Well, I completely forgot and it has been 17 hours since I unplugged the Ultra.

As you said, when I turned the Ultra back on the remote would not auto connect. I pressed the preset button twice and it played.
(This is not a problem for me.)

If you can figure out how long it takes to time out, you may be able to solve this problem by simply turning it on/off with the smart tap periodically.

 

[hoohoohoo]

I have a WiiM Amp that I leave powered on 24/7, so it goes into standby mode after whatever the default time is. I rarely use the remote -- a handful of times per week (once or twice on a weekday and rarely if ever on the weekends). It's dead again and that's 3 times in 13 months.

Punchline: I notice that the WiiM Remote goes through batteries at a higher rate than say an Amazon FireStick remote. What's your experience?

 

[hgo58]

I have a WiiM Amp that I leave powered on 24/7, so it goes into standby mode after whatever the default time is. I rarely use the remote -- a handful of times per week (once or twice on a weekday and rarely if ever on the weekends). It's dead again and that's 3 times in 13 months.

Punchline: I notice that the WiiM Remote goes through batteries at a higher rate than say an Amazon FireStick remote. What's your experience?

I have had my Ultra since August, never changed battery and still working fine.

Note that it goes into standby and need to be waked up. Press it once, wait a few seconds for it to connect and then press again.

 

[BK308]

I have a WiiM Amp that I leave powered on 24/7, so it goes into standby mode after whatever the default time is. I rarely use the remote -- a handful of times per week (once or twice on a weekday and rarely if ever on the weekends). It's dead again and that's 3 times in 13 months.

Punchline: I notice that the WiiM Remote goes through batteries at a higher rate than say an Amazon FireStick remote. What's your experience?

I’ve had my Amp since July. I use the remote almost daily and haven’t changed the batteries and have had no connection issues. So far so good.

 

[Mr Ee]

I'm with @hoohoohoo on this - never had to replace remote batteries as often as in these wiim remotes.
In fact, I've taken to removing them when not using it.
I'm assuming it's somehow related to them being bluetooth, and maybe that my wiims are set to sleep Never; my tv remote gets way more use and I can't recall the last time I changed its batteries.

 

[harkpabst]

I got my WiiM Amp in February 2024. The remote has not seen much use, but the first set of batteries is still working fine.

The batteries were not even new, I took them from the remote of my previous Pioneer amp.

 

[hoohoohoo]

I got my WiiM Amp in February 2024. The remote has not seen much use, but the first set of batteries is still working fine.

The batteries were not even new, I took them from the remote of my previous Pioneer amp.

Hey @harkpabst -- do you shut down your Amp daily?

I have the remote on my desktop with the Amp on the other side of the room - 4 metres away. Amp goes into auto standby. Usually I'm playing music in the mornings and then as calls come in, the music stays off. I might put it on late in the afternoon once my calls die down.

I've got the web service from @cvdlinden as my backup to shut the music off.

I've got a couple of Kirkland/Costco 'AAA' batteries in there now and need to refresh.

 

[harkpabst]

Hey @harkpabst -- do you shut down your Amp daily?

I have the remote on my desktop with the Amp on the other side of the room - 4 metres away. Amp goes into auto standby. Usually I'm playing music in the mornings and then as calls come in, the music stays off. I might put it on late in the afternoon once my calls die down.

I've got the web service from @cvdlinden as my backup to shut the music off.

I've got a couple of Kirkland/Costco 'AAA' batteries in there now and need to refresh.

No, I usually unplug the power over the weekend (with exceptions). Early this month I gave the WiiM Amp to my brother (still the with the same batteries). I'll instruct him to tell me when the batteries go bad.

My Ultra gets disconnected from the power every night though and is usually just used through evenings and night time. I definitely have to "wake up" the remote every day by pressing a button and wait a little. Batteries inserted in June 2024.

If the remote enters a power saving mode after a while of not being able to connect to the device this might help to improve battery life.

 

[Mr Ee]

If the remote enters a power saving mode after a while of not being able to connect to the device this might help to improve battery life.

This is why I'm wondering whether the standby "Never" setting is a factor, as presumably it's in somewhat constant comms with the wiim so the battery status can be reported in the app.

 

[harkpabst]

This is why I'm wondering whether the standby "Never" setting is a factor, as presumably it's in somewhat constant comms with the wiim so the battery status can be reported in the app.

"Never" is not even available as a setting if you are in Europe.

I didn't try to figure out how the WiiM Home app tries to determine my location (phone's region setting, GPS, IP address range, whatever).

The WHA Windows beta version doesn't care about such subtleties and offers the "Never" option, though.

 

[Wiimer]

I have a WiiM Amp that I leave powered on 24/7, so it goes into standby mode after whatever the default time is. I rarely use the remote -- a handful of times per week (once or twice on a weekday and rarely if ever on the weekends). It's dead again and that's 3 times in 13 months.

Punchline: I notice that the WiiM Remote goes through batteries at a higher rate than say an Amazon FireStick remote. What's your experience?

Are there any signs that the device is frequently unpaired with the remote?
If so, that may be the cause.

If you manually unpair the WiiM Remote, it will enter pairing mode. You can confirm this by having the WiiM Remote appear in the list of connections on the phone's Bluetooth settings screen. (If unplug the device's power cable, the remote will not enter pairing mode.)

 

[hoohoohoo]

Are there any signs that the device is frequently unpaired with the remote?
If so, that may be the cause.

If you manually unpair the WiiM Remote, it will enter pairing mode. You can confirm this by having the WiiM Remote appear in the list of connections on the phone's Bluetooth settings screen. (If unplug the device's power cable, the remote will not enter pairing mode.)

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll play around with it some more in the coming week or two. Life has gotten busier than usual, so it will have to wait a bit. I'll pop back with questions and an update.