JBL Clip Battery Indicator

The blue status light on the front of the JBL Clip speaker.

The JBL Clip has a single LED on its front grill, near the clip carabiner. This displays battery status. It shows whether it’s draining or charging, or whether it’s critically low. However, it does not show charging progress, or how full the battery is. But it does change color when the battery reaches almost-dead state. So in this post, we describe how to read the JBL Clip battery indicator light.

How to Read the JBL Clip Battery Indicator Lights

1. The Battery Indicator Lamp is OFF

When you power down the Clip with no charger present, this lamp goes dark. The lamp is also dark when the charger IS present, but the battery is full.

The dark status lamp on the JBL Clip BT speaker.

2. The Speaker Shows Battery Recharging is Occurring

The status lamp lights up red (no flashing) while the speaker charges, as shown in the next picture. On this speaker, the glowing light is the only visual indication that charging is underway. But it does not tell how far along the charging is.

The JBL Clip speaker, powered OFF while charging, showing the red battery indicator light.

Note that this lamp blinks purple and blue when the battery is very low. So this signals that you should recharge the Flip soon. Then when you connect a charger, this red flashing light turns to a solid red when the speaker is OFF. Or it turns purple when the Clip is ON. Also note that this light never flashes while charging is happening.

3. When the Light Goes Out While Charging, Then Charging is Complete

As speaker charging continues, the light keeps glowing red or purple. Battery charging completes when the lamp goes out, or turns blue. It turn off when the speaker is not ON, and turns white when it is ON.

This last picture shows the speaker during charge cycle when turned OFF. Note the red light.

The next picture shows the speaker charging while turned on. Note the purple light.

The JBL Clip speaker, powered ON while charging, showing the purple battery indicator light.

The recharge cycle finishes when the lamp turns off. Even with the AC charger present, the lamp does not glow when battery is full. Of course that is the case unless the speaker itself is running.

If the speaker is ON when charging finishes, the lamp turns from purple to blue. If the speaker is OFF, then then lamp goes from red to dark.

4. The JBL Clip Battery Indicator Does Not Tell How Much Charge Remains

When unplugged from the charger, what was the battery indicator becomes the battery charge left indicator. Well sort of. If it glows or flashes blue, then the battery has some amount of play time remaining. But you cannot tell precisely how much by reading this light.

But the only indication this light gives about battery status when not charging, is when the battery is quite low. Then, this lamp starts flashing purple and blue.