BeoLit 20 power cable behavior

[Stan]

TL/DR: The BeoLit 20 seems sensitive to the quality of the USB cable used to power it. With the OEM cable, it turns off 15 minutes after the source signal (line-in or bluetooth) is stopped. With a high quality 3rd party cable, the unit stays on.

The full story:

I have a BeoLit 20 connected to a TV in my home. Obviously, not a home theater experience, but a definite upgrade from the built-in speakers. I can also easily grab it if I need something portable (not often, but it’s there if I need it). I have it hard wired via an HDMI to analog audio converter box.

Anyway, since it’s connected to the TV, I want it to be on all the time. Asking my wife to push the “on” button when she turns on the TV is too much (and the boop when it turns off is annoying since it’s in a bedroom). When I initially hooked it up, I used a “high end” 3rd party USB cable I had laying around. Not silly “high end”, but one advertised as supporting the highest bandwidth with a fabric casing since my family tends to be hard are their USB cables (or maybe it’s just Apple cables stink). It may have cost $15.  I used this cable because I wanted to make it easier to return the BeoLit if it didn’t work as I wished. I’m bad with coiling cables so leaving the OEM cable coiled in the box would be one less thing to worry about in the unfortunate event that didn’t work out. This all worked exactly as I wanted.

Recently, I had to do some re-wiring so I decided to use the USB cable that came with the BeoLit. Not much point in using a fancy “high bandwidth” USB cable as a power cable. With the OEM cable, the BeoLit does not stay on. The unit turns off 15 minutes after the TV is turned off, and then one must press the power button to use it again. I was surprised by this behavior. At first I thought it had defaulted back to some setting that I had forgotten that I set, but no, there are very few settings on the BeoLit.

Conclusion: If you do not want your BeoLit to turn off 15 minutes after the source stops, find a high quality USB cable (I usually buy cable from Monoprice or Steve). If you want it to turn off, use the OEM cable.

Maybe someone else will find this useful.

Stan

[Author]

Posts