Top view of the JBL Charge 5 speaker, showing the -Power- button glowing.
The JBL Charge 5 speaker has six buttons and a few lamps across its top. There’s also a battery gauge light strip. The Power button lights in white to show that the 5 is ON or OFF. The Bluetooth lamp blinks or glows solid to show pairing status. And, there’s also a port access panel on the back near the bottom of the unit. This protects the USB charge output port. Interestingly, the USB-C charging input port is outside of this protected area. Nonetheless, here, we offer our JBL Charge 4 buttons guide. This shows where the control buttons are. Furthermore, it explains what each button does, tells when to press them, and how to use them in general.
You use the Connect Plus button to connect two or more JBL Connect+ compatible models together. In this “party mode”, they all play the same audio content. Like speakers joined in Amazon’s multi room music groups. All speakers linked via Connect+ sync with each other.
Note that you also press this button when setting up a stereo pairing. This involves exactly two speakers that are the same model.
For party mode, power up and pair the first speaker in your group to the source device. Then press this button on each unit to add to the Connect+ group. Then shortly after, they all begin playing the same program.
The picture above shows the JBL Charge 4 not joined in Connect+, because the Connect+ oval ring is dark. But, this ring lights when you connect the 5 to a Connect+ group.
For stereo, you do likewise. But use only two speakers that are both the same model. That is, they both must be JBL Charge 5 speaker units. But you also need the JBL Connect app for stereo pairing instead of party mode.
The 5 has two volume controls on its top. There’s one on each side of the center, near the Bluetooth and Power buttons. The volume buttons are in the shapes of the minus and plus symbols.
When pressed, these lower and raise the sound output. They do this by reducing or increasing the volume setting on the source device.
With the JBL Charge 5 speaker paired and playing, press the minus button to decrease volume. Furthermore, press the plus button to increase volume. Note though that these controls have no effect when the 5 is not in a pairing session.
Also, the volume setting may change from paired device to paired device. That is, each device remembers its own volume setting. So you may have to readjust the volume when you pair to another device.
This button switches the Charge 5 on and off.
Quickly press and release the Power button to turn the 5 ON or OFF.
This button glows solid white any time the 5 is ON. See it glowing white in the last picture above. Plus, the button goes dark when the speaker is off, as shown next.
There is one row of buttons on the JBL Charge 5 speaker. Four of the six buttons in that row has a very pronounced tactile shape. The two buttons in the middle you can still feel but not as easily. But of the two in the center, one of those is the Bluetooth button. It’s to the right of the Power button, as pointed at by the green arrow in the next picture.
You’ll use this button anytime you’re pairing the 5 with a never-before-paired BT device. So, with this speaker powered on, press and release the Bluetooth button to place the Charge 5 into discovery mode. When in discovery / pairing mode, the 5 transmits its name and other connection information over the Bluetooth airwaves. This allows nearby Bluetooth devices to discover and connect to it.
This button looks like a right-pointing arrow. We find it on the top, nearest to the right edge of the Charge 5.
Press and release this quickly, once, to pause audio play. Press and release again, and again quickly, to resume audio play.
Note that this is not a mute button. That is, pausing play in this way stops media playback on the source device. If streaming, the stream pauses. So, you won’t miss any content when you pause the 5. This is because the source device remembers where you stopped play. So it resumes at that spot when you press the play pause button again.
Finally, you can skip forward to the next song in a playlist with the Play-Pause button on the Charge 5. As the song plays, do the following…
You can reset the JBL Charge 5 speaker by pressing the Volume UP and Play-Pause buttons together. Then hold them in until the reset begins.
You may wish to reset the 5 to correct any unusual behaviors you see. These can include failing to pair, sound distortion, failure to power OFF, and so on. Note that resetting seems to invalidate any saved connection information to this speaker on your source Bluetooth devices. So you’ll have to forget those connections. Then re pair the 5 after a reset to play your music through it again.
First, in this mode, the Charge 5 does not power ON without the charger. Thus, it will not run on the battery while in Service Mode. Furthermore, when you do connect the charger, it powers up without pressing the Power button.
Further, you cannot turn off the Charge 5 while it is in Service mode. Not unless you disconnect the charger. And then, it powers off without pressing the Power button.
To turn on this Service mode, power on the speaker first. Then press the Bluetooth and Play-Pause buttons at the same time. Hold them in until the unit powers OFF, which takes ten seconds or so.
Find these buttons pointed out in the last picture. Note that you can enter this mode as long as the 5 is ON. So it doesn’t matter whether the charger is present or not.
Now you can restore proper operation by disabling this mode. But note that in Service mode, to switch it back off, you must connect the charger. Why? Because when in Service mode, the 5 won’t come on without outside power. But you can’t change modes without powering up the unit first. Thus, you need the power adapter to make this fix.
Finally, at this point, the Power button should turn the 5 ON again. And that’s either with or without the charger.
Entering this mode powers down the 5. It also disables the buttons, except for the one you need to exit this mode. If running on AC power or battery, the button lamps may all glow in this mode.
To turn on Lock mode, power up the Charge 5 first. And then press and hold in the Pairing and Volume UP (+) buttons at the same time. Hold them in until the Charge 5 powers OFF, which 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 5 is ON. Note that it doesn’t matter whether the unit has connection to external power. But remember that unlike in Service mode, you don’t need to connect the AC adapter. This is true as long as the battery has enough juice to power up the Charge 5.
Again, you can restore correct operation by cancelling this mode. But note that when Lock mode is active, you can switch it back off without connecting the charger. That is as long as the battery is not completely dead. But if you don’t know battery status, then be sure that you can boot the 5 after you exit Lock. So just go ahead and connect external power anyway.
This 5 also has a light strip on the front. This shows the amount of charge currently in the power bank battery.
When the internal battery is full, this entire strip lights up white. And as the power bank discharges, more of the strip goes dark. In the next picture, the 5 is at full charge. The entire bar glows in this case.
As the battery further discharges, more strip goes dark, until the charge amount reaches between 0 and 20 percent. In this case, only the very bottom of the bar glows.
Finally, when the battery discharges to critically low levels, the bottom of the strip blinks. Speaker shutdown will come soon when this occurs. So, recharge it right away for continued musical enjoyment.
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