Although turning a console off is something usually pretty straight forward, it appears that the Switch isn’t just as easy as pressing the power button to shut it down, as some users have found.
Pressing the power button on the tablet will put the console into a ‘sleep mode’ instead of turning it off, you’ll need to bring up the power options menu to turn it off entirely.
Here’s how it works:
- You’ll need access to the console directly, the Switch cannot be turned off via controllers.
- Hold down the power button for at least five seconds.
- A menu will pop up that gives you the option to put the console in sleep mode or power options.
- Select power options.
- You’ll then have the option to restart the console or turn it off. Select to power down.
You will then have fully powered down the Switch! Although it may seem simple, some may be surprised that there is no way to turn off the console via the joy-cons or any other controller used with the console.
I figured this out by treating my Switch like a 3DS system lol:D
Yeah, I was pretty surprised when I went to boot up Zelda again the day after and there were no title screens or loading screens or anything. I’ve started using sleep mode when I’m taking breaks, though, so it’s nice knowing how to turn it on.
But why would you ever want to turn it off completely?
Perhaps to conserve battery life/durability a little more efficiently.
It’s actually worse for the battery to turn it completely off. There is a large surge of power needed to start up a fully powered down electronic device.
I’m not so sure that’s true…
Maybe depends how long you leave it off for also.
Myth busters did an experiment once to see if that rumor had any legs under it… with a different product of course.
I’m always happy to admit when I’m wrong.
We couldn’t figure out how to shut it down either after I was done playing on our TV.
Allowing all one’s devices to run in sleep mode permanently, all the time, isnt a great thing since they still use some power while sleeping–and this is one of those ways we waste electricity and is horrible for the planet. Turn your stuff off when not using it.
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/everyday-tech/vampire-power1.htm
The more complex in electronic device is, every once in awhile you can benefit from a hard reboot. This goes for laptops, cell phones, any computer – even consoles like the Xbox1.
(especially the Xbox1 x.x)
In any case, it’s sure to do find by just using standby mode for long periods of time but every four or five days I would personally do a hard reboot, leaving it off for about 2 minutes. It gives the OS a chance to breathe and dump a bunch of cached shit it doesn’t really need.
Everything in moderation of course but if somebody were experiencing a bunch of lag on breath of the wild I would definitely do a hard reboot – it could fix the problem for a while.
This was a rhetorical question, I meant it like why would you want to stop playing Zelda and turn off your switch? More like how could you? Its addicting. I’m fighting the urge to take my switch to work tomorrow due to the botw withdrawals I was suffering today lol
And here’s I thought it was just extremely fast to turn it on, lol.
I wish I knew how to change this, the default to sleep mode is extremely annoying.
Of course it just goes into standby when you hit the button, sounds like you turn it off like a smartphone. It really, really is like a smartphone…with an HDMI out built in.
I mean, it all makes sense. Give smartphones and tablets are pretty much the same animal these days.
Only thing about smartphones is that people usually pull them out constantly to use them throughout the day, mostly to check the time. Switches don’t take that long to boot up and I don’t see anyone using it on the go more than twice. Most of the time people will use it at home anyways and not even bring the thing outside.
Woe the switch really is similar to phones and tablets.
Yeah this was a day 1 thing for me.
You cannot turn it off when its in the dock, even using the method above, if you only have joy cons and want to charge them attached to the tablet. Very annoying to me, since i like to fully power down my systems between use.
This is because you need to use the joy cons to select the power-off fuction after pressing the button as described (there is no way to select power off without using the joy cons). So, therefore, you either need to leave the joy cons un-docked (And therefore not charging) or reattach them to the docked controller–which wakes the system up again.
Therefore, according to my best experiments, you can only fully turn off the switch if you dont mind leaving the joycons unconnected. I suppose when I get a pro controller this will be a non issue, but it still seems odd–i hate leaving it in permanent sleep mode.
I need to correct what i said earlier. You can power down the console even if you only have joycons.
Order of events: Console is docked, joycons detached. Press/hold power button on docked console. Use joycons to select power off. Carefully insert joycons without pressing any buttons (not sure, but this might wake up the console again if you hit a button).
You just cant do it if you are holding the console (w joycons attached) and try to dock it after you power down. Because this reengages the television mode (turns system back on).
I discovered this after my first test play on my Switch, and I wasn’t happy about it. I was getting SO frustrated, searching and searching for a power button within the on-screen menu. I HATE the fact that it can only turn off from the console screen itself. When I do my final game playing before going to bed, I like to just turn a console off by the controller. Now I’ll have no choice but to get back out of bed just to turn it off. I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but I hate when simple convenience gets taken away.
“My Nintendo Instruction Manuals”
Umm okies the first time I’ve seen this girl in the pic who did this article and wow she’s stunning! … Sowwy off topic, I realised it like after 30 secs how to do it lol
Im pretty sure they will just patch in a regular way at some point.
Sounds like the 3DS xD
I knew I couldn’t turn it off with the Joy-Cons, but I haven’t been turning it off at all when pressing the power button & have simply been putting it to sleep!? So even now it’s still on but asleep while I’m here on the damn computer!? MOTHERFUCKER!!! I’ve been wasting energy since the fucking 3rd! D: *scurries to turn Switch off completely & trips on face along the way* D: