How to Make Sony XG 500 Discoverable

The Bluetooth pairing / discovery button on the Sony SRS XG500 speaker.

To pair your XG 500 Sony boombox speaker with a Bluetooth device for the first time, or to refresh old connection info in that device, you have to know how to place this speaker into discovery mode. Now in this mode, this boombox broadcasts its name and currently valid connection handles over the Bluetooth airwaves, so that nearby BT source devices can find and link to it. Thus in this post, we show you how to make the Sony XG 500 discoverable, to let you pair it with phones, tablets, computers, and smart speakers so you can play your favorite tunes from those devices, on the XG 500.

How to Make Sony XG 500 Discoverable, Step by Step

1. Turn On the XG 500

Firstly, turn on the speaker by rapidly pressing its Power button.

E.g. See this button, pointed out by the green arrow, in the next picture.

The -Power- button on the Sony XG 500.

The speaker then comes on.

The -Power- lamp glowing green.

2. Press and Hold the Discovery Button for Two or Three Seconds

Secondly, this lets you discover your XG 500 on your source BT device. So, place the speaker into discovery mode by pressing and releasing the Pairing / Discovery button, as we point it out in the next picture.

The Bluetooth discovery button.

Additionally, when you press and release this button in a quarter second, the speaker talks to you in a female voice, and she says, “Bluetooth pairing.”

The Bluetooth status light glowing blue.

Plus, the Pairing Status lamp begins flashing blue in a pulse-pulse-pause-pulse-pulse-pause pattern. We point out this light in the last picture.

3. Done with How to Make Sony XG 500 Discoverable

The Sony XG 500 showing as discovered on the Bluetooth Settings page on iPadOS.

Finally, while the Bluetooth Status lamp is blinking, you should see the XG 500 on any in-range phone, computer, tablet, or smart speaker, that is within several feet of it, as we see in the last picture above. The speaker appears as “SRS-XG500” there. At this point, you can go ahead and connect to the speaker from your source device.