Customizing power options for any console can help maintain the health of your hardware and cater the console to your own lifestyle and requirements.
With the customizable power options available on Xbox One and Series X|S consoles, you can fine-tune your preferences, change how your console manages power, and view how much power the console will use when turned on or off.
But why exactly might you need to alter your console's power settings, and how can you customize them on Xbox? Let's find out.
Why You May Need to Customize Your Xbox’s Power Options
Generally, there are two main reasons you may need to change the power settings of your console: to make the most of console features, like faster start-up times, or to save power and cut down on your energy consumption.
Because of this, Xbox utilizes two power modes to help suit these common requirements. The first, Shut-down (energy saving) mode, allows you to reduce your power consumption by ensuring your console always completely powers off at the expense of features.
The second power pre-set, Sleep mode, maximizes your power usage but enables remote power options and faster start-up times for your console by always putting it to sleep instead of shutting it down.
While Xbox allows you to customize your Xbox home screen with dynamic themes or create custom Xbox controllers, these power modes are more restrictive. What if you want your console to sleep but also disable remote power features to reduce power usage?
Luckily, with Xbox's 16th November 2022 system update as announced on Xbox Wire, you can customize your power options to pick and choose between features from both power modes and even view how many watts of power your preferences will consume.
How to Check Your Power Options on Xbox
Before diving into how you can customize your Xbox's power options to best suit you, you may want to double-check what power options are currently enabled on your console and how many watts of power your console is currently using.
To check your current power options for your console, follow these steps:
- Press the Xbox button to open the guide.
- Navigate to Profile & system and select Settings.
- Under the settings for General, select Power options.
- Once the Power options menu loads, your currently in-use power mode will be highlighted by the word Active.
To check your power consumption, look for a Current power use when off section beside your active power mode. Whatever figure is displayed will tell you how many watts of power your console's current power settings use when the console is turned off.
Knowing how to check how many watts of power your console consumes is a great trick that will come in handy when fully customizing your power options, allowing you to see changes to your energy output in real-time.
How to Customize Your Power Options on Xbox
While Xbox's power pre-sets are generally handy, if you need your power options to further meet your preferences, they can falter. In this scenario, you can further customize your Xbox's power options.
To fully customize your Xbox power options, enter the Power Options, just as you would for checking your current power mode, and select Customize power options.
You will then be given a variety of preferences to pick and choose from to cater your power options to your requirements.
These options allow you to set how much time of inactivity needs to pass for your console to power off, set custom remote features, and even choose whether your storage remains accessible even if the console is off.
By adjusting these features, you're able to see how many watts of power your console will use with your chosen preferences. This ensures you're not using too much energy while also allowing you to turn on the console features you want to use.
Save Energy and Make the Most of Xbox's Customization
By customizing your console's power options, you make your console more practical for your energy or gaming requirements while also changing your console to suit your overall gaming needs.
By making the most of Xbox's other customization features, you can customize your online appearance to help improve your presence while online, improving both your console's practicality and your gaming experience.