Hi Steven,

Since the SiB runs on battery, yes, the only way to chat with it is when the button is pressed to wake it.

You would create a program or select an app prior to it waking and then when it wakes from button press it will read the new program and will do whatever the program wants it to do, including waking periodically to read a sensor or similar.

However, there IS a mode to keep it always awake so it responds immediately to commands and doesn't go to sleep and that mode is:

Mode SID

By sending that to it, it will switch from mode SiB and be on all the time and as long as it has some program running that makes it do something, then it will stay on until the battery is depleted which is just a few hours. If there's no program running then it will go to sleep as a safety precaution.

For SiD mode apps, normally there's an external power supply powering up the SiB so that the internal battery is not used, instead it acts as a backup in case the external power stops for some reason.

Hope that answers your question!

Regards,
Mark

Yup! that's the way to do it