How to tell if JBL Clip 3 is charging? This Bluetooth speaker with built in carabiner has one two-color LED lamp on its top. Find it in front of the carabiner, as we show in the pictures that follow. This light not only gives speaker power OFF ON and pairing status. But it also expresses the battery level (to a degree) as well as charging status. To see if the soeajer is charging, check this lamp. We explain how to understand it next.
How to Tell if JBL Clip 3 is Charging
Connect your Clip 3 to USB Power
Of course, you can know that the Clip Three is NOT charging with no power cable plugged in.
Check the Status / Power LED on Speaker Top, Right Under the Carabiner Clip
When the speaker is OFF, you can tell if it is charging, if this light glows steady red. When the Clip 3 is running while charging, the lamp either glows solid red, or blinks white. How it glows depends on whether you pair with anything or now. It flashes white when the speaker has no connection. And it glows solid red when charging. This solid red glow occurs while charging, when either powered ON OR OFF.
When not charging, this light blinks red when the battery has about run entirely out of power.
Now the speaker may glow steadily or flash white, or it flashes red with the power cord connected. In these cases, the speaker is not charging. If this light does any other than glow solid red, then the unit is not charging. So you might check that your USB cable, adapter charger, and power source are working. Try a new USB power adapter or another cord. You want this light either glowing solid red, to know for sure that charging is happening.
Furthermore, the Clip 3 JBL warms a smidge as it charges, as do most charger adapters you run it with. This heating is a near sure-fire way to tell if the JBL Clip 3 is indeed charging.
As speaker charging advances, the status LED keeps glowing red. But unlike some of the higher end JBL speakers, this one gives no exact charge reading. It just tells us that charging is in progress. See the red glowing lamp in the last picture that we point out with the green arrow.
Charging Completes When the LED Goes Dark
The battery charge cycle completes when the following happens. The power LED changes from red to white. Or it goes out altogether, as we see in the next two pictures.
The lamp goes dark when the battery is full. This is true when you connect the charger, as we show next.
Finally, Unplug the JBL Clip 3 and Turn it On
Now in the case where the power LED glows solid or flashes white as we see above. This could mean that the speaker did indeed finish charging. But with the USB cable disconnected, we cannot tell if the speaker charged fully. Only that it did charge some. It probably did recharge to full though, as long as we waited until the light stopped glowing red before disconnecting.