How to Adjust Volume on JBL Charge 3 Speaker

There are a few ways for how to adjust volume on JBL Charge 3 speaker. These depend on the app(s) you’re playing from mostly. Many apps provide volume adjustment controls. But the speaker itself has two buttons for volume control as well. Find these (the + and -) buttons on its top side. Note though, that you cannot set volume with the JBL Connect app.

How to Adjust Volume on JBL Charge 3 Speaker: Step by Step

You can adjust the volume without using any apps, doing it this way, as follows.

1. Lay Out the Speaker such that you See the Button Controls

There are six buttons in this row. These include the Bluetooth ON / OFF, Volume DOWN (-), Power, JBL Connect Plus, Volume UP (+), and the Play / Pause button at the right center of the speaker.

Picture of the top of the JBL Charge 3 speaker, showing the -Volume UP- and -Volume DOWN- buttons. — Top view of the JBL Charge 3 speaker, showing the -Volume UP- and -Volume DOWN- buttons.

2. Set Volume by Pressing the – and + Buttons

The last pic shows the locations of the volume buttons on the speaker.

Press the (-) button at the left center to reduce the volume. Tap the (+) button at the right center to increase the volume.

3. Done.

How to Adjust Volume on JBL Charge 3 Speaker: With Siri Voice Commands on iOS

Picture of Siri prompting for voice command screen on iOS device. — Siri prompting for voice command screen on iOS device.

This speaker lets you start Siri by pressing the Play / Pause button near the top, when paired with an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch).

This feature will not work though, until you change the function of the speaker’s Play / Pause button in the JBL Connect app. We’ll cover how to do that in another post, upcoming. Press that button, and you get the screen on your iOS device shown in the last picture. For this demo, we assume that you’ve set your Play / Pause button on this speaker to activate your voice assistant.

Command Siri to Adjust Volume

Next is an example of giving Siri a voice command to set the volume to half (50 percent).

Picture of Siri changing volume to half (50 percent). Showing the screen when that happens. — Siri changing volume to half (50 percent). Showing the screen when that happens.

Press that button to get Siri’s attention. Hold it in until she responds. Then ask her to raise and lower the volume as follows.

Siri Responds

Next is an example of Siri responding to a voice command to set the volume to FULL (100 percent).

Screenshot of Siri changing volume to full (100 percent). Showing iOS screen when that happens.. — Siri changing volume to full (100 percent). Showing iOS screen when that happens..

Siri Volume Setting Commands Summary

Siri currently understands one scale for volume adjustment: 0-100 percent. Example commands follow. Say these after you’ve pressed the Play / Pause to wake her up.

Set volume 0 [muted].
Volume 0.
Set volume 10 [Ten percent].
Set volume 10 percent.
Volume 10.
Set volume 76 percent.
Volume 76.
Set volume 100 [One hundred percent, full volume].

There are also shortcut commands for minimum and maximum volume setting, as in:

Mute. [Sets the volume to zero percent, minimum, muted state.]
Half volume. [Adjusts volume to fifty percent, or half of full.]
Set volume full. [Sets volume to maximum, 100 percent.]
Set volume max. [Sets volume to maximum, 100 percent.]
Volume half. [Adjusts volume to fifty percent, or half of full.]
Volume minimum. [Sets the volume to zero percent, minimum, muted state.]

How to Adjust Volume on JBL Charge 3 Speaker: On the Bluetooth Source Device

You can adjust volume with the controls on the paired device. Further, you can do the same with paired Android devices as well. However, we find that volume adjustments on the speaker do not change the volume on our Samsung Galaxy J7 Sky Phone Pro. For this phone, the volume buttons seem to adjust the volume of the amplifiers on the speaker itself. They do not change the phone volume though. We discovered distortion with its volume set to half while the phone volume was at full (100 percent). So, just be aware of this so you can avoid “over driving” the JBL Charge 3 Speaker with your Android device.

In this demo though, we’re playing YouTube content on our iPad Air, and streaming to the JBL Charge 3 speaker via the streaming Bluetooth connection.

1. Pair your Speaker

We’ll add posts presently that show how to pair the JBL Charge 3 speaker with a source Bluetooth device.

2. Begin Playing a Music Source

Start streaming an internet radio station, a song from YouTube or Spotify, or an Audible book. In this demo, we streamed YouTube audio to our speaker.

3. Use your Source Mobile Device’s Volume Control Buttons to Adjust Volume on JBL Charge 3 Speaker

See this done in the next picture.

Picture of the YouTube app on iOS, as seen during adjusting the volume while playing a video. — YouTube app on iOS, as seen during adjusting the volume while playing a video.

Note the purple arrowed volume setter square with a speaker inside of it in the last picture.

Also note that the volume change you hear on the speaker lags by a half second or so. Why? Because of the latency (delay) of the commands going across the Bluetooth airwaves.

Again, we’re not covering here how to set volume for individual apps. So, we leave to the reader figuring out how to do this.