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That's great news! What firmware version is your Airport Express (mine is 7.4.2)? Does this feature require Airport to act as a Access Point? In other words, if my Express is set up as a wireless client (I only use it for AirTunes), can I still use this feature?

The firmware on my Airport Express is 7.4.2. I'm not sure about the answer to your other question, but I'm sure that if you try it out, others will be interested to know what you find.
 
So basically, this feature is completely useless if you don't have an all-Apple hardware setup, complete with nearly brand new Macs?

Just more proof that Apple doesn't care about their long-time customers anymore. I have an "ancient" November 2008 iMac, as well as Draft-N compliant router (not built my Apple.) So I won't be able to take advantage of the useful wake on demand feature, simply because I wasn't that impressed with the AirPort Extreme Base Station?
 
For the Airport Express users: is everyone using newer, 802.11n expresses? Or has anyone had success with the older 802.11g expresses?

Also, has anyone's system profiler told them their machine is incompatible but had success anyway? My Mac Pro says ethernet only, and I'm hoping it's lying.
 
So I won't be able to take advantage of the useful wake on demand feature, simply because I wasn't that impressed with the AirPort Extreme Base Station?

Correct. Because getting this to work with a non Apple router isn't currently possible with how they implemented it. The router runs a Bonjour proxy service, caching every bonjour service it sees on the network. If it sees another device request a service from a sleeping machine, it sends the WoL packet out. Your draft N router lacks this Bonjour proxy, so yes, it won't work. Feel free to contact your router manufacturer though and ask them to add the Bonjour sleep proxy. It has been submitted as a standard by Apple, so any 3rd party can implement it.
 
Correct. Because getting this to work with a non Apple router isn't possible with how they implemented it. The router runs a Bonjour proxy service, caching every bonjour service it sees on the network. If it sees another device request a service from a sleeping machine, it sends the WoL packet out. Your draft N router lacks this Bonjour proxy, so yes, it won't work.
I just find myself wondering if it's truly a technical limitation or just a way for Apple to increase sales of the AirPort Extreme Base Station.
 
So basically, this feature is completely useless if you don't have an all-Apple hardware setup, complete with nearly brand new Macs?

Just more proof that Apple doesn't care about their long-time customers anymore. I have an "ancient" November 2008 iMac, as well as Draft-N compliant router (not built my Apple.) So I won't be able to take advantage of the useful wake on demand feature, simply because I wasn't that impressed with the AirPort Extreme Base Station?

The feature has to be implemented in your router, so you need to make a feature request to your router vendor asking them to implement Bonjour and to keep broadcasting your Mac's services as a proxy when the Mac is asleep. That is not Apple's job to do.

I have been waiting on getting a dual band router and was leaning away from the AEBS due to cost, but this might be a feature to sway me back towards it. If you are going to charge more money you should offer more features, and this sounds exactly like what Apple has done.
 
I just find myself wondering if it's truly a technical limitation or just a way for Apple to increase sales of the AirPort Extreme Base Station.

Another conspiracy theorist. Tell you what, write Apple and ask them to hold every router manufacturers hand and help them add in their firmware the necessary parts to make this work. That sounds like a reasonable request to me...

Maybe you are trying too hard to think outside the RDF, that you make such obvious errors about a company's intentions.
 
So basically, this feature is completely useless if you don't have an all-Apple hardware setup, complete with nearly brand new Macs?

Just more proof that Apple doesn't care about their long-time customers anymore. I have an "ancient" November 2008 iMac, as well as Draft-N compliant router (not built my Apple.) So I won't be able to take advantage of the useful wake on demand feature, simply because I wasn't that impressed with the AirPort Extreme Base Station?

No. You can still wake your iMac from another computer that can spit out WoL magic packets. ( http://www.readpixel.com/wakeonlan/ ) You just cannot take advantage of the extra features that Apple has implemented on their routers. These require the sleep proxy.

I just find myself wondering if it's truly a technical limitation or just a way for Apple to increase sales of the AirPort Extreme Base Station.

Technical limitation on the part of your vender. When/If they implement the sleep proxy, then it will work. Otherwise, you can still send wake packets to a Mac that supports wake on wireless.


Again: Wake on wireless will work on almost any wireless router (if your Mac supports WoW), but the extra features Apple provides will not without the bonjour sleep proxy.
 
Another conspiracy theorist. Tell you what, write Apple and ask them to hold every router manufacturers hand and help them add in their firmware the necessary parts to make this work. That sounds like a reasonable request to me...

Maybe you are trying too hard to think outside the RDF that you make such obvious errors about a company's intentions.
The reason I even bring it up is because lately Apple has made some very dumb decisions (such as only allowing a battery PERCENTAGE NUMBER on the iPhone 3G-S, only allowing voice dialing on the iPhone 3G-S, etc.) that were clearly sly ploys to encourage sales of their new devices.

Thus, it wouldn't have surprised me one bit if Apple built in a new feature to Snow Leopard that essentially required an Apple-only ecosystem to function. Maybe it's a conspiracy, but it's what they've done in the past.
 
The reason I even bring it up is because lately Apple has made some very dumb decisions (such as only allowing a battery PERCENTAGE NUMBER on the iPhone 3G-S, only allowing voice dialing on the iPhone 3G-S, etc.) that were clearly sly ploys to encourage sales of their new devices.

Thus, it wouldn't have surprised me one bit if Apple built in a new feature to Snow Leopard that essentially required an Apple-only ecosystem to function. Maybe it's a conspiracy, but it's what they've done in the past.

The two situations are completely different.

With the iPhone, the battery percentage thing is not worth mentioning. Voice dialing, sure they are locking 3G users out. But that is their choice of course, and they want to make money.

However, with this Wake on Demand feature, requiring an Apple router does not mean they are out to get money. It simply is not possible to do it without getting every router on board. They make the Airport and can thus build those features in.

I can see how you can cry foul on the iPhone, but not on this feature. If you want to propose a way for it to work without changing your N router, please do. It is clear that it is not possible without requiring Apple to do far more work than should be required.

If you don't want to use Apple routers, write your own solution.
 
As a note, this appears to work with SSH.

Remote into your machine, sleep it (manually, or with pmset sleepnow). The SSH window remains open, and active. If you press a button or begin typing, it will wake the remote machine.
 
ya, sorry the article wasn't clear. I tihnk people are confusing this with the simple Wake from Lan that has been around.

Sure you can wake your computer via LAN manually... but I believe this makes it so all the computers around know that your iTunes Library is a service available from your sleeping computer. And can awaken it just by trying to access it.

I think the best example is probably from Apple TV, but I haven't tried it so the details could be off:

From your Apple TV, if your Mac is running Leopard and is asleep, your music library will be inaccessible from Apple TV. In Snow Leopard with your Mac asleep, you will see it from the Apple TV still as an option and when you try to access it, the Airport router will waken your computer so it can serve those files.

arn
 
Very cool.

Now if my late 2007 Macbook would stop sleeping when in use and disconnected from the power cord. Maybe that a Stay-Awake feature that only SL has. :p
 
Apple could of course implement a similar feature to AppleTV if they wanted. AppleTV could cache the required information (and it probably already does) to wake up the computer it is synced with. I think the only feature it is basically is missing is to send that magic wake packet...
 
Apple has posted a Knowledge Base article. Any Bonjour-enabled computer is compatible according to Apple, simply requiring a few steps to set up.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3774?viewlocale=en_US

Not exactly. If you read closely the document is saying any bonjour enabled client can wake a Snow Leopard Mac which support Wake on Demand. Later in the article it tells you how to validate this.


To enable Wake on Demand on a Mac running Snow Leopard:

From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
From the View menu choose Energy Saver.
Select (check) "Wake for network access". Note: The "Wake for network access" option's text may differ depending on the capabilities of your Mac:
Wake for network access - Your Mac supports Wake on Demand over both Ethernet and AirPort
Wake for Ethernet network access - Your Mac supports Wake on Demand over Ethernet only
Wake for AirPort network access - Your Mac supports Wake on Demand over AirPort only

For my Late 2007 Santa Rosa Macbook Pro it says "Wake for Ethernet network access" so I'm left out of this party.
 
Just a random thought. If the network card needs power all the time now, does this affect the "sleep" life of an Apple laptop that is running on battery power? I will admit that such a situation would not be terribly common but say you have enabled the wake on WLAN function and then take your laptop on a trip, if you wanted to maximize battery life would you have to disable it in order to prevent the internal airport card from listening for a wakeup packet that will never come (because it is not at home)?

My copy of SL (Up to Date ordered) will show up eventually, although I will probably wait on installing it for a while to ensure all of my existing software will play nice and to see if any issues are reported by others.

Ruahrc
 
This feature is awesome. Makes 30 bucks for Snow Leopard an absolute bargain.
 
For the Airport Express users: is everyone using newer, 802.11n expresses? Or has anyone had success with the older 802.11g expresses?

Also, has anyone's system profiler told them their machine is incompatible but had success anyway? My Mac Pro says ethernet only, and I'm hoping it's lying.

I have an old Airport Express and it doesn't work with that. The latest firmware for the 802.11g is 6.3 while those reporting success are stating that their firmware is 7.4.2 which was released for those with 802.11n capabilities.

Thankfully I also have one of the newer Airport Extreme that does work.
 
Yes it does and it works really well - have had my iMac sleeping overnight and my AppleTV can still see all of the TV shows & Movies on it. When I choose one that is hosted on the iMac it starts playing.

Genius!

That's brilliant! This feature will be so useful to anyone with an AppleTV!

Even better that my copy of SL has just been delivered... I'm off to install and let the good times roll... ;)
 
My ISP uses PPPoA as well but I got an ADSL modem (Linksys AM200) in half bridge mode which allows the Airport Extreme to work as intended. Wake on Demand works 100%

Just my luck, my DSL modem (Huawei SmartAX MT882) only seems to have a full bridged mode, not a half-bridge.
 
So does the feature allow you to wake only from sleep?

Or can I actually boot a (wired?) machine using the Wake on demand (Like I can with almost all modern PC's?)
 
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