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A Closer Look at Snow Leopard's Wake on Demand Feature

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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,552
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MacUser provides an in depth look at one useful new feature in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: Wake On Demand.
[Wake On Demand] is Apple’s name for a new networking feature that lets a Snow Leopard Mac go to sleep while a networked base station continues to broadcast Bonjour messages about the services the sleeping computer offers. The base station essentially acts as a proxy for the slumbering Mac. Advertised Bonjour services includes file sharing, screen sharing, iTunes library sharing, and printer sharing among others.
Click to expand...
Prior to Snow Leopard, you would have to make your Mac never go to sleep if you wanted it to provide file or print sharing services at any time. This new feature will wake your Mac over Ethernet or even Wi-Fi networks.

There is a specific combination of hardware that is required to accomplish these tasks, however. Apple says you need an AirPort Extreme Base Station (2007 or more recent) or Time Capsule (2008 or more recent) with the latest firmware. MacUser found that in order to wake your Mac by Wi-Fi alone, you would need a 2009 Mac. To see if your Mac supports this 'Wake on Wireless' option, you can look at your System Profiler.

Apple details how this could be used to offer full time support for iTunes Sharing, Printer Sharing, Back to My Mac, and more. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was officially launched today.

Article Link: A Closer Look at Snow Leopard's Wake on Demand Feature
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2009/08/28/a-closer-look-at-snow-leopards-wake-on-demand-feature/
A

ab2650

macrumors 6502a
Jun 21, 2007
714
0
The wake on wireless looks intriguing... I've been using WoL with my Macs for some time now, but it has always been a "two-step" process, involving sending a WoL packet from somewhere on the (wired) network to the machine's MAC address. dd-wrt routers have a WoL broadcaster so it's easy enough to set up Macs that sleep but are still remotely accessible.

IMHO, the points of this feature are:
1) Simplicity; Turning a two-step process into just one.
2) Equivalency of wireless/wired networking, assuming you have all the right gear.
 
N

NeighbrhoodPush

macrumors newbie
May 13, 2009
5
0
This would be the perfect solution when i stream to my 360. Was gonna hold off on Leopard for a few weeks but im gonna go buy it right now. I think i overlooked this feature cause this is the first ive read about it...
 
W

wonderbread57

macrumors 6502
Jun 11, 2008
455
2
I would say this is a cool feature. Especially for a leopard based car puter that can wirelessly sync files with a home computer on demand.
 
V

ventro

macrumors 6502a
Sep 23, 2006
692
0
Is there a way to access this service? I run a local server to serve webpages to the computers around my house and I would like it to wake up when someone requests use of the server.
 
M

Modano

macrumors regular
Jun 23, 2003
114
23
New Orleans
Enable it in Energy Saver to get it to work! I can confirm that it works with the original Unibody MBP. That is awesome.
 
M

MacMan86

macrumors 6502
Jul 22, 2008
324
0
UK
Menge said:
Wait a second: Macs never had Wake-On-LAN?
Click to expand...

They've had Wake-On-Lan for a while now - what's new is that it works for wirelessly connected Macs now as well - no longer have to have the mac connected to the router with an ethernet cable. First time I've heard of this technology
 
B

bukweet

macrumors newbie
Aug 21, 2003
13
0
Finally!...

This is awesome! For YEARS I've had to rely on POT to dial in to my Mac at home or work to wake it, since an Airport router does not pass the wake up "magic packet."

Now, not only will the Airport Extreme pass the wake up packet, but it will also wake a remote system that's on WiFi... how the he'll does it do THAT??

Anyway, for me, this is the BEST feature of Snow Leopard.

Thanks Apple. Nicely done.
 
robogobo

robogobo

Suspended
Jun 6, 2005
439
58
Sitting down facing front.
The secret for this to work is having power to the sleeping Mac's network card. So I don't think there's any hope to make it work with unsupported machines. The real question is why did it take so long to get this feature. WOL isn't exactly reliable, and with the different sleep modes (deep or safe sleep, etc) the possibilities vary widely with each machine. Thanks goes to network component manufacturers. Foxconn, I'm looking at you.
 
NATO

NATO

macrumors 68000
Feb 14, 2005
1,702
35
Northern Ireland
It works a treat... as soon as I try to access my iMac from my MacBook Pro, the iMac suddenly springs into life and it's as if it was on the whole time. I've set my iMac to go back to sleep again after 30 minutes inactivity so overall I should make quite a saving in electricity from now on :)

I have to say, I never heard of this Wake on Demand feature until a few days ago and it's been one of those nice little surprises with Snow Leopard
 
S

Soat

macrumors newbie
Sep 5, 2006
15
0
Confirming Wake on Wireless supported on Late 2008 unibody Macbook Pros.

Anybody run into seeing it "supported" but not actually work? I haven't tried it yet.
 
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