How to Pair Victor Reader Trek with JBL Flip 2

JBL Flip 2 Bluetooth speaker alongside the Humanware Victor Reader Trek talking book player and GPS navigator.

The Victor Reader Trek GPS navigator, talking book player, pod catcher, and internet radio can pair with the JBL Flip 2 portable Bluetooth speaker. In fact, we listen to talking books and old time radio shows often on our Flip 2 by way of the Victor Reader Trek (VRT). So yes, this Bluetooth speaker pairing allows you to listen to podcasts, books, recorded notes, and streaming internet radio through that portable speaker. We thus show here how to pair Victor Reader Trek with JBL Flip 2 portable Bluetooth speaker. The Flip 2 offers a great yet affordable way to add near-high fidelity audio output to your Humanware Trek. Note that you need not access the JBL Connect app to establish Bluetooth speaker pairing. All you need is the speaker and the VRT.

Summary: How to Pair Victor Reader Trek with JBL Flip 2 Portable Bluetooth Speaker

We summarize the pairing process as follows: First, get the Victor Reader Trek ready for pairing. Next, turn on your JBL Flip 2 Bluetooth speaker and put it into Bluetooth discovery mode. Finally, on your Trek, scan for and connect to that speaker. We detail each of these three high level steps next.

JBL Flip 2 wireless speaker, NFC antenna end view, speaker held in hand.

Step by Step: How to Pair Victor Reader Trek with JBL Flip 2

1. Power on the Victor Reader Trek

Hold in the round power button, found on the top left side of the Trek, as shown next, until the unit vibrates one quick pulse. Release the power button then, and wait for the green power-on lamp to light and the Trek to complete booting. It’s fully booted once the welcome message plays and the electronic chime sounds.

Victor Reader Trek navigator, left side view, showing the power button location and the green power-on lamp glowing.

2. Turn Off Airplane Mode if it’s On

With airplane mode on, the Trek will not connect either to Wi-Fi or to Bluetooth devices. So, assure that airplane mode is OFF. When the amber online status lamp, as shown next, either glows solidly or is flashing, this means that airplane mode is definitely off and the unit is trying to connect to an in-range Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth device. When the lamp is dark, this COULD mean that airplane mode is on. But it also could mean that, though airplane mode is OFF, that there is nonetheless, no current Wi-Fi connection established. The Trek can indeed be offline (not connected to the internet) even though airplane mode is OFF.

So, check that airplane mode is indeed OFF by pressing and holding the Online button (the circular button with the Wi-Fi symbol in the top row of keys on the front of the unit), until the VRT announces airplane mode status. If it says, “Airplane mode OFF,” then you’re all set. But if it says, “Airplane mode ON,” then press and hold the Online button again until it announces, “Airplane mode OFF.”

Note that you need not connect to a Wi-Fi network to pair the Trek with a Bluetooth speaker. But again, airplane mode MUST be disabled for successful pairing to take place.

Victor Reader Trek DAISY book player, front view, showing the Online lamp glowing amber, and highlighted. Indicates that airplane mode is OFF, and therefore, that the Trek can connect to Bluetooth devices and / or Wii-Fi networks.

3. Next, Turn On Your JBL Flip 2 Bluetooth Speaker to Continue with How to Pair Victor Reader Trek with JBL Flip 2

Here, we’re using the JBL Flip 2 portable speaker for this demo, as shown next.

JBL Flip 2 wireless speaker, powered OFF, showing its -Power- button highlighted.

For this speaker, we find the power button on the speaker’s control panel end as shown above, pointed at by the blue arrow. To turn on the Flip 2, we quickly press and release the power button. That button should immediately light up as shown in the next picture. The speaker makes a two-tone, low-high sound, meaning that power is now ON.

If your Flip 2 does not enter discovery mode (the Bluetooth lamp flashes after power up), then quickly press and release the Bluetooth discovery mode button on the Flip 2, as shown next.

The -Bluetooth Discovery Mode- button.

When the speaker has entered discovery mode (Bluetooth lamp flashes white), proceed onto the next step. If the Bluetooth button is dark, then the speaker is not in discovery mode.

4. Scan for the JBL Flip 2 on the VR Trek

To scan for the speaker, make sure the Trek is working with the online bookshelves by quickly pressing and releasing its Online button until the Trek announces, “Online bookshelves.”

Then quickly press and release the * key once and then the 7 key twice (*77). The Trek then announces, “Bluetooth.”

Then, quickly press and release the 8 key, until the Trek announces, “Connect to Bluetooth device.”

Finally, press the # (pound) key. This starts the Trek scanning for Bluetooth devices, and it announces this by saying, “Scanning for Bluetooth devices.”

The scan is done when the Trek announces the number of Bluetooth devices it discovered, as in, “3 devices found” for example.

5. Select your JBL Flip 2 Speaker from the List of Found Devices

Use the 2 and 8 keys to move up and down in the list of found devices, until the Victor Reader Trek announces the name of your speaker. In this demo it found our speaker, named JBL Flip 2.

6. Connect to your JBL Flip 2 Bluetooth Portable Speaker to Continue with How to Pair Victor Reader Trek with JBL Flip 2

With the list cursor currently pointing at your Flip 2 on the Trek, press the # key. This starts the connection process.

After a short pause, the Trek establishes a connection with the speaker, announcing this by saying, “Connected to JBL Flip 2.”

Once the Trek is paired with your speaker, you should now hear any audio that would normally come from the Victor Reader, now coming from the Flip 2 Bluetooth speaker. Both the power and Bluetooth buttons glow solid white, as shown next, to indicate successful pairing.

JBL Flip 2 wireless speaker, showing the control buttons side. Speaker is powered on and paired.

7. Done with How to Pair Victor Reader Trek with JBL Flip 2 !

We’ve now successfully paired our JBL Flip 2 with the Humanware Victor Reader Trek talking book player.

Possible Problems

Note that as of this writing, the announcements made by the Trek are sometimes wrong. E.g. Sometimes, when you scan for devices, the list of devices it found does not include your speaker. We’ve found that often, doing a second or third device scan will find the Flip 2.

It also happens at times that once you located your wireless speaker in the list and press the # key to connect to it, that the Trek will initially announce, “Connected to Bluetooth device.” But then a second or two later, it announces, “Failed to connect to Bluetooth device.”

Again, the answer here is to run the scan and connect attempt again. Do this by pressing the * (star) key to leave the Bluetooth menu, then repeat steps 4 through 6 in this procedure. Keep repeating until you successfully establish a Bluetooth connection with the Flip 2.

About Memorized JBL Flip 2 Speakers

Once you add your JBL Flip 2 speaker to the previously paired devices list on the Trek, your Victor Reader will connect to it again, when it’s Bluetooth is turned on and it detects that speaker is activated and in Bluetooth range. With our Flip 2 speaker, we just turn the speaker on and it automatically reconnects, without doing anything further.