SmartSleep


- have your Mac sleep smart

AppStore users: scroll down for instructions

 

SmartSleep

Sleep your Mac differently depending on the battery level.

Your MacBook or MacBook Pro knows the following sleep states:


  1. sleep machine will go to sleep only (saves state in RAM only, battery keeps RAM contents)

  2. hibernate only machine will go to hibernate only. (saves state on disk, battery will not be used)

  3. sleep & hibernate machine sleeps and hibernates. (default)


Just sleep means that the notebook will go to sleep fast, but you lose the ability to change the battery as the battery is needed to keep the contents of the memory (RAM).

Just sleep and hibernate will wake the computer fast, but sleeping will take ages as the contents of the memory are saved to disk before entering the sleep.


The solution

SmartSleep lets you select each sleep state. Additionally the new SmartSleep state lets your notebook just sleep while the battery has a high level. If the battery level drops below a certain point (default is less then 20% or 20 minutes) it will switch to sleep and hibernate. So you have the best of both worlds. Furthermore it will expand the lifetime of your SSD (if you have one) as your MacBook won't write a hibernate file as often.



Features

  1. QuickSleep feature New - sleep your Mac immediately the way you want.

  2. SmartSleep Menu Item  New - figure out the current Sleep State and QuickSleep.

  3. Insomnia feature in Menu Item New to keep your Mac awake.

  4. Timed insomnia. Keep your Mac awake only for a time.

  5. Five different sleep modes to chose from:

- system default

- smart sleep (if your Mac has a battery )

- sleep only

- hibernate only

- sleep and hibernate

  1. Does not need admin privileges New

  2. Runs as a application not a preference pane New

  3. Beeps when closing the lid, so you don’t forget that you have insomnia enabled (plugin).


Requirement: Mac OS X 10.6.6 and higher, 10.7 - 10.10.


For Mac OS X 10.6 download SmartSleep.10.6.dmg



Clamshell Insomnia plugin

Beginning with version 3.06 SmartSleep now supports the SmartSleepInsomnia Plugin. As soon as you install this plugin, the Insomnia mode will keep your Mac awake even if you close the lid.


For MacOS 10.7-10.10: Download the free

SmartSleepInsomniaPlugin.1.2.0.pkg.zip

 


AppStore users

The old AppStore version does not run correctly on lion due to a bug in lion. Apple does not allow me to update the AppStore version as the workaround for the bug requires admin privileges and is therefore not allowed in the AppStore.

Instructions for installation are as following:


Install the AppStore version. If this fails read the next paragraph.

Run the AppStore version - this will copy the appstore license into your Library folder.

Quit the AppStore version.

Remove the AppStore version located in /Applications.

Download the Website version.

Copy the Website version to /Applications.

Start the Website version.



New Application Icon, Uninstalling the old version 2.x

Btw. if you remember the old Application icon -  That has changed lately. If you are using an old version (prefPane) you need to uninstall the old version before installing the new one. This is due to some bug in the AppStore installer:

Download the free

SmartSleep Uninstaller.dmg

 


Background

Back in 2005 a feature called hibernate silently went into newer PowerBooks. With an nv-ram setting it was possible to enable hibernation on old Powerbooks as well. A friend of mine pointed this out to me and having done no Cocoa programming at all on Macs I decided to venture into this realm and write a nice interface to it - Hibernate.prefPane was born.

I quickly found out that hibernation wasn’t a feature I wanted and the program lay dormant for two years.

When I bought an Intel MacBook Pro I was annoyed by the hibernation feature which just takes too long to get my Mac to sleep. I updated Hibernate but that was not enough, so I decided to write SmartSleep.