I have pressed the power button exactly once, since Friday (the day I got it). All other restarts were "soft" (including a couple of crashes). The keyboard and trackpad do fine, starting a shut-down computer.
It's replacing a docked MBP. That power button was a lot more difficult to reach, and I needed to hit it more often than this.
I spent a few minutes looking up whether a Mac could be booted from a Bluetooth keyboard but couldn't find any documentation of that. Back in the day some(?) Mac models could be booted by a USB keyboard, see https://www.projectgus.com/2023/04/griffin-imate/ for technical details.
I just bang on the spacebar, and it starts up. It's a Bluetooth keyboard, so I guess the system is listening to BT. I did that with the laptop, forever.
The Mini starts up a lot faster than the laptop.
That said, I should actually do a test, to make sure that the system is in real shutdown...
Nah. I'm wrong. The laptop started that way, probably because the keyboard is attached to a CalDigit dock, and tapping on the keyboard probably sent power to the device, which starts it.
That doesn't happen with the Mini, if I actually do a shutdown from the menu.
Apple has something I think they call "Deep Sleep," which is basically a shutdown, and that wakes from the keyboard.
That said, it's not a big deal to reach under the left side, and tap the button. The laptop was a pain, because I had to open it up.
But I've only had this thing a few days, and haven't had a chance to really torture it, yet.
It's pretty zippy.
I have pressed the power button exactly once, since Friday (the day I got it). All other restarts were "soft" (including a couple of crashes). The keyboard and trackpad do fine, starting a shut-down computer.
It's replacing a docked MBP. That power button was a lot more difficult to reach, and I needed to hit it more often than this.