The JBL Flip has a single LED near the top of the front panel. This displays battery status, whether it’s draining or charging, or whether it’s critically low or not when discharging. But it does not read out charging progress, or how full the battery is at a given time while charging. Nor does it show how much power remains in the battery when discharging. However it does change color when the battery reaches near-dead state. So in this piece, we describe how to read the JBL Flip battery indicator lamp on this speaker.
JBL Flip Battery Indicator: How to Read It
1. The Battery Indicator Lamp is OFF
When you power down the Flip with no charger, this lamp goes dark. The lamp is also dark when the charger IS present but the battery is full.
2. The Battery Indicator Shows Recharging Progress
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 going on. But it does not display how far along the charging is.
Note that this lamp blinks red when the battery is critically low. This signals that a recharge will soon be necessary. But when you apply USB power, this red flashing light turns to a solid red. So this light never flashes red while charging.
3. When the Light Goes Out While Charging, Then Charging is Complete
As speaker charging continues, the light keeps glowing red if the speaker is OFF, or blue if it is ON. But eventually though, battery charging finishes. Then the lamp goes out when the Flip is OFF. Or it turns blue if the speaker is running.
4. The JBL Flip Battery Indicator Is Not Much of a Battery Charge Remaining Meter
When unplugged from the charger, what was the charging indicator becomes the battery charge left indicator. Well sort of. If it glows or blinks blue, then the battery has some amount of play time remaining. But you cannot tell how much by reading this lamp.
The next picture shows the speaker powered ON, with the battery indicator lamp glowing solid blue. Note though that this light flashes blue when no pairing session is active.
But the only indication this light gives when not charging, is when the battery goes low. Then, it starts flashing red, as mentioned above.