Covers how to check the battery within the Sony Extra Bass SRS XB22 portable Bluetooth speaker, and also, how to tell if the battery life is dwindling over time and when it’s time to replace the battery.
How to Check Sony XB22 Battery, Current Charge
1. First, Turn ON the XB22
You won’t be able to read battery charge status unless the speaker is ON.
To turn on the unit, press and release the Power button, pointed at by the aqua arrow in the last picture. It’s on the speaker top, and the right most button in the button panel as you face the front of the unit.
The Power lamp, also on the top of the speaker, should then light up. E.g. See this in the next picture. Then the speaker may make a two-beep sound if it connects to a close-by device. If it does not turn on, then the battery could be completely dead.
But as long as there’s some energy in the battery, the speaker should power up. When it does, advance to the next step.
2. Look at the CHARGE Lamp on the XB22
You can tell at a quick look if the battery is teetering on the edge of going dead by way of the CHARGE lamp. When the battery is not super low, this lamp is dark. But when the speaker has very little charge left, the CHARGE lamp flashes orange.
E,g, The next picture shows the CHARGE lamp location. It’s in the port compartment in the rear of this Sony speaker, near the right side, very close to the USB input port.
How to Check Sony XB22 Battery, Overall Battery Capacity
When the speaker is new, and using a micro USB charger, the battery charge time is about four and a half (4.5) hours to reach a full charge. And, the full battery should last for around twelve (12) hours of play time before dying, when you run it at low to medium volumes, and with surrounding temperatures in the 70s or 80s. At max loudness, you might only get a few hours of music.
So a sign of a bad battery, is that it goes dead too rapidly. Or it takes too little or too much time to fully charge. Thus if you fully charge your speaker, but it repeatedly plays for under twelve hours at low volumes before shutting down, its battery may be bad, and no longer able to hold a full charge. This is typical of aging lithium ion batteries.
Or if the CHARGE light goes out in under two hours after you start charging the battery from dead state, then the battery may also be failing.
Furthermore, if the SRS XB22 battery takes longer than six hours to finish recharging, this could also mean that the battery is nearing its end of service life. Longer-than-normal recharge times could mean too, that the charger you have is not beefy enough to fill up the speaker in the specified charge time of 4.5 hours. To rule out this possibility, try another charger.
Finally, extended charging times can happen because your USB power cable is too thin, and allows too little current to reach the speaker. So for best results, we suggest using a thick micro USB cable (one that easily carries 2 amps).
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References
Revision History
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- 2023-03-19: First published.