The Charge 5 Bluetooth speaker has a group of LEDs behind a translucent white bar in its front lower area, as we see in the pictures that follow. This displays battery level whether it’s draining or charging. I.e. The Charge 5 JBL battery level gauge shows you charging progress, or how full the battery is at a given time while charging. It also tells you how much “juice” the battery has left as the battery discharges. In this piece we discuss how to check battery level on the speaker by reading this meter.
How to Check Battery Level on JBL Charge 5
1. The Battery Meter is Entirely Dark
When you power down the speaker with no charger connected, no lamps light up, as we see next. This bar also shows as dark when a charger IS connected but the battery finished charging to full. The battery gauge is on the front lower portion of the speaker in the center.
2. JBL Charge 5 Battery Level Gauge Shows Recharging Progress
There are five tiny LED lamps inside the speaker, that illuminate the battery meter bar in various degrees. These light in succession as the speaker charging fills the battery. The 5 is recharging when you see part of the bar pulsing white. When the battery is near empty, the bottom edge of the bar blinks white while charging. Then as charging continues, more of the bar lights up, and flashing end of the bar moves up.
Note though, that you may see the bottom most part of the meter flash red. This does not mean that charging is proceeding. Instead, it means that the speaker battery is critically low and that you should recharge the speaker immediately.
It only flashes red like this when the battery is nearly dead and AC power has not yet been applied. But when you do that, this red flashing light begins blinking white. Remember though, that this light never pulses red while charging is happening.
3. When The Whole Battery Level Gauge Lights Solid White, Charging is Done
As speaker charging progresses, more and more of the lamps on the JBL Charge 5 battery meter light solid, That is, the flashing LED moves further and further up, until that blinking reaches the topmost area of the bar.
Battery charging is done when all but the very last little segment of the indicator lights solid. That last part continues to blink for several minutes. Again, you know that charging is occurring if one of the battery charge level lamps is flashing white.
Note that during the charge cycle, part of the gauge is dark (top most portion). This lets you know about how much more the battery must charge before reaching fullness.
The battery recharge cycle finishes when the entire battery status gauge goes dark, as we see above. Thus, the battery is no longer charging when all lamps are OFF. Even with the AC charger still connected, no part of the indicator glows when the battery is full.
4. The JBL Charge 5 Battery Gauge Also a Battery Charge Remaining Meter
When unplugged from the adapter, what was the battery charge level meter becomes the battery charge left meter. The more lights lit, the fuller the battery. The fewer lamps glowing, the less speaker run time left. These lamps show battery status for a brief time after you power up the Charge 5, or whenever you press any of the buttons. To save power, this meter goes dark after some seconds. So to see the battery level once more, just press the Volume UP or Volume DOWN buttons to bring the lamps back to life.
The last picture shows the speaker powered ON, with the entire battery meter bar aglow, meaning that the battery is between eighty and one hundred percent full.
How to Check Battery Level on JBL Charge 5 in the Portable App
If you have a smart device capable of running the JBL Portable app, you can see the speaker’s battery level of charge left there as well. Just pair the 5 with this device and bring up the app on that same device.
Then, once the app detects the speaker, it displays the speaker’s Home page as we see next.
The level item we point out with the dark blue arrow. It shows how full the battery in the speaker is. The more of that bar that is green, the fuller the battery.