I agree that I wouldn't want them on my desk either (either side of the PC monitor), but they're fine for me in the living room. I switch mine on & off manually at the end of the day, I disabled the auto standby because sometimes they wouldn't switch themselves off.
Mine occasionally don't turn themselves off, or take more than the 15 minute standby time to turn off, but I've noticed the left one turning on anywhere from 1-3 times a day, when the PC it was connected to that's on daily was out of commission. At least it's my left one, my right one is against a wall with the back nearly impossible to reach.
Probably the simplest solution is to disable auto standby and use a "main switch" like in a recording studio. Or leave it on and use the central switch anyway, before going to sleep etc. Some studio monitors (like the Neumann KH 310A) don't have auto standby at all, despite considerable idle power consumption. They are meant to be switched off after their "work day".
Is that OK for speakers? Turning off at the mains highly unrecommended for PCs, consoles, and I presumed anything sophisticated like a DAC.
Also, the instructions look complicated, but they're quite easy.
- take pictures of your settings beforehand. turn off speakers.
- set all protruding switches (not the one you need a toothpick to get to) to the right.
- set volume to minimum.
- turn on. set all protruding switches to the left within 5 seconds.
- front flashes to signal standby turned off.
- return volume & settings to normal.
- repeat in opposite direction to turn standby back on.
right --> left (standby off)
left --> right (standby on)
I'll see if turning it off and on again a few times fixes it.