The JBL Boombox 2 speaker features several buttons and lights across its top, as well as a battery charge status meter on the front, near the bottom. Plus, there’s also a port access panel on the back bottom, sealed with a flexible cap. This houses a USB-A output port to recharge your mobile devices from. There’s also a USB-C service port. We also have the auxiliary (AUX) input 3.5mm port. And finally, there’s the barrel style DC input receptacle for charging this speaker. Thus here we offer our JBL Boombox 2 buttons guide. We show you where the controls are on the unit, explain what each each button means and does, what any button combination presses do, when to press them, and how to use the buttons to work the speaker and access its many functions.
JBL Boombox 2 Buttons Meanings, Functions, Combinations, and Codes
There is one row of buttons across the top of this speaker. Plus, most buttons there have a unique shape.
The Bluetooth Discovery / Pairing Mode Button
We begin this guide with the Bluetooth Discovery / Pairing mode button, in the button island in the center top of the speaker, as we point at with the green arrow in the next picture. Note its squiggly Bluetooth logo shape.
How to Use the Bluetooth Discovery (Pairing Mode) Button
You press this button anytime you pair the JBL Boombox 2 with a never-before-paired Bluetooth source device. It works like this. With the speaker powered on, press the Bluetooth Discovery button to place it into discovery mode, often referred to as Bluetooth pairing mode. When in this mode, this button flashes fast white while the speaker sends its name and other connection information over the Bluetooth air channels. So this allows nearby Bluetooth devices to find and connect to it.
When you connect to the speaker from your source Bluetooth device, this button stops blinking and assumes a steady white glow. Furthermore, when you break the BT connection, the button goes dark.
The Volume Down and Volume Up Buttons
The Boombox 2 also sports volume controls. Near the center of the speaker on either side of the button island. These buttons appear like minus and plus symbols. When you press them, these lower and raise the output volume of the speaker respectively, by adjusting the volume setting on the paired source device. See the Volume Down and Volume Up buttons pointed at by the green arrows in the next picture.
How to Raise (Turn Up) and Lower (Turn Down) the Speaker Volume
With the Boombox 2 paired and playing, press the minus shaped Volume Down button to decrease its loudness. Or, press the plus shaped Volume Up button to raise it.
Note that these controls have no effect when the speaker is unpaired. Also, the volume setting may change from paired device to paired device. That is, each paired device remembers its own volume setting. So you might need to re set the sound output when you unpair the speaker from one source device and pair it to another.
The Play-Pause Button, is Another of the JBL Boombox 2 Buttons
The Play / Pause button looks like a right-pointing arrow. We find it on the top, near the right side of the speaker, as pointed at by the green arrow we drew in, in the next picture.
How to Use the Play-Pause Button
As the speaker plays, press and release the Play / Pause button quickly to pause audio play. Rapidly press it again to resume audio play.
Note that the Play / Pause button is not a mute button. That is, pausing play in this way stops sound playback on the source Bluetooth device to which this speaker is currently paired. It does not merely just must the speaker while the stream continues going. If streaming, the stream suspends. So, you won’t miss any content when you pause the speaker when playing an audio file, as the source device (your phone, tablet, or computer) remembers where the content was paused. So it resumes playback at that spot when you press the play pause button again. Live streams however, will continue advancing even when you pause playback.
Move Back and Fourth in a Playlist
Finally, you can skip forward to the next song, or back to the previous song in a playlist with the Play-Pause button on the Boombox 2. As the song plays, do the following…
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- To advance to the next song, quickly press and release the Play-Pause button twice. Upon doing that, your source device advances to the next song in the current playlist.
- To move back and play the previous song again from the beginning, quickly press and release the Play-Pause button three times. When you do that, your source BT device jumps back one song from the current one in the current playlist, and plays that song from the beginning.
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The Power Button
The Power button switches the Boombox 2 ON and OFF and lights up when power is ON.
How to Use the Power Button
Quickly press and release the Power button to switch the speaker ON or OFF. When the speaker is ON, doing this turns it OFF, and when it is OFF, doing this turns it ON normally.
If you cannot turn off the speaker by quick pressing the Power button, then try pressing and holding it in for ten to fifteen seconds. This usually forcibly shuts down the Boombox 2, and then when you turn it ON again, normal behavior typically resumes.
The PartyBoost Button
You would use the PartyBoost button to connect two or more JBL PartyBoost compatible speakers (like this JBL Boombox 2) together, in “party mode”, so that they all play the same audio content. Similar to speakers participating in Amazon’s multi room music groups, all speakers connected together via PartyBoost are in sync. That is, they all lay the same audio at the same time. PartyBoost lets you connect over a hundred compatible speakers in this way.
How to Use the PartyBoost Button
You press this button on each Bluetooth speaker you wish to add to the PartyBoost group.
The picture above shows the Boombox 2 not joined in a Party Boost group, because the oval ring around the Power and Bluetooth buttons is dark. But this ring lights when the speaker joins a group, as we see in the next picture.
Note that you can mix and match any combination of JBL speakers in this joined group, so long as they all support the PartyBoost protocol. Most of the latest speakers from the Flip, Charge, Xtreme, and Boombox series models will work together as we describe next.
PartyBoost Button Use, Step by Step
- Place all speakers within a few feet of each other.
- Power up and pair the first (master) speaker to your Bluetooth source device.
- Next, power up each additional (slave) BT speaker that you wish to sync with the master.
- Press and release the PartyBoost button on the master speaker. The oval ring around the buttons on the speaker should then light up.
- Then press and release the PartyBoost button on each slave speaker in turn. Again, this button or oval ring will start glowing on each speaker, depending on speaker model.
- Now when you play something on your BT source device, you will hear it on all speakers that you put in the group.
- Finally, you can break the connection between the speakers by pressing and releasing the PartyBoost button on the “master” speaker. Or, if you want to keep the group going but only with to remove certain slave speakers, then just turn off those speakers. The rest of the group will still continue playing.
Finally, if you put exactly two of the same speaker into a PartyBoost group, you can switch them between Party and Stereo modes in the JBL Portable app. However, since you don’t use the buttons on the speaker itself to make this adjustment, we won’t discuss it further here.
JBL Boombox 2 Buttons Combinations, Codes, Chords
All Lights On Test Mode
Entering the All Lights ON mode briefly lights all lamps on the JBL Boombox 2 control panel as well as the battery meter, as shown in the next two shots.
Note that all battery gauge lamps, found on the front, near the bottom of the JBL Boombox, also come on during this test, as shown next.
How to Turn All Lights On Briefly
To enter this mode, press and hold the Volume Down and Play-Pause buttons that are highlighted in the next picture, for around ten seconds. Hold this chord until you see the lights all come on, as shown in the last picture.
Once you enter All Lights ON, the lights remain lit for a short period before they all shut off. Then, the speaker returns to normal working order once the lamps return to their pretest state.
Firmware Version Button Combination Code
Pressing the PartyBoost and Volume DOWN buttons together, for at least two seconds make the JBL Boombox 2 say its current firmware version. It says two or more numbers that comprise this version, in a female voice.
Reset Button Combination Code
You can hard reset the JBL Boombox 2 to factory default settings and state by pressing the Volume UP and Play / Pause buttons at the same time and holding them in until the reset happens. See these buttons pointed at by the green arrows n the next picture.
You may wish to reset the speaker to fix any weird behaviors you see from it such as failing to pair, sound distortion, failure to power off when you press the Power button, and so on. Note that resetting invalidates any saved connection info about this speaker on your source Bluetooth devices. So you’ll have to forget those connections and manually pair the speaker again after a reset, to play your audio content through it once more.
The Abort Mode
If your speaker becomes unresponsive to the usual button presses, then you can force it to power down. Hold in the Power button for ten to fifteen seconds, and release it when all lamps on the speaker go dark.
Then, once the Boombox 2 shuts off, you can power it up again in the usual way (press and release the Power button), and again, normal behavior will likely resume.
Weird Mode Button Combination
When in this (often called ‘weird’ or ‘secret’) mode, the JBL Boombox 2 goes into a sort of running-but-dumb state. That is, the power lamp keeps glowing. But the speaker breaks all Bluetooth connections and then the BT status lamp goes dark. Also, pressing the Power button does not turn off the unit at this point.
Indeed, none of the buttons seem to work in this mode, except for the ones needed to exit it. E.g. The speaker won’t pair with any devices or other speakers when you press the Pairing button, and as mentioned, the Power button does not switch it off either.
How to Turn On Weird Mode
To turn on this Weird mode ON, on the JBL Boombox 2, power up the speaker first, and then press the Bluetooth and Play-Pause buttons at the same time, until the speaker goes silent and all lamps except the power one turn off. This usually takes ten seconds or so. Find these buttons pointed out in the next picture. Note that you can enter this mode as long as the speaker is ON, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s connected to external power or not.
How to Turn Off Weird Mode
But once you activate this mode, then to switch it back off , you must again press the Bluetooth and Play-Pause buttons together. Hold them in until the speaker makes the powering-down guitar sound. When next you power up the speaker again, normal operations should return.
The JBL Boombox 2 Battery Status Meter
Finally, to round out our JBL Boombox 2 buttons guide, this speaker also has a light gauge that shows the amount of charge left currently in the built in power bank battery.
How to Read the Battery Status Meter
This gauge normally stays lit for only a few seconds after booting, and once it goes dark, it no longer shows battery status. But you can get it to come to life again by pressing and releasing one of the volume keys.
When the internal battery is fully charged, the entire meter glows white. But ss the battery runs down, less and less of the gauge bar glows. In the next picture, we show the speaker at one hundred percent charge. Note that all five lamps are lit in this case.
As the battery further depletes, more of the meter goes dark, until the charge amount reaches between 0 and 20 percent. In this case, only the very bottom of the gauge, glows.
Finally, when the battery discharges to extremely low levels, the bottom of the meter flashes red, as we see next.
Speaker shutdown then happens soon after that. So, as soon as you see red, recharge the battery for continued musical enjoyment.
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Revision History
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- 2022-10-13: Added to the tags group.
- 2022-08-16: First posted.