Picture of the JBL Charge 3 Bluetooth speaker with the Victor Reader Trek talking GPS media player, front view.

Pairing Victor Reader Trek with JBL Charge 3

The Victor Reader Trek GPS navigator, eBook player, pod catcher, and internet radio now can pair to the JBL Charge 3 wireless speaker. We listen to podcasts and music albums often on our Charge 3 by way of the VRT. So yes, this Bluetooth speaker pairing allows you to listen to any audio media that the Trek can play through that wireless speaker. We thus demo here pairing Victor Reader Trek player with JBL Charge 3 Bluetooth speaker. The Charge 3 offers an bodacious sounding, affordable way to add near-high fidelity audio output to your Humanware Trek. Note that you do not need to access the JBL Connect Plus app to perform speaker pairing in this scenario.

Summary: Pairing Victor Reader Trek Player with JBL Charge 3

In a nutshell, we summarize the pairing process as follows: First, get the Victor Reader Trek (VRT) ready for pairing. Next, turn on your JBL Charge 3 speaker and put it into Bluetooth discovery mode. Finally, on your VRT, scan for and connect to your speaker. We detail each of these three high level steps next. For this demo.

Picture of the front of the JBL Charge 3. Pairing Victor Reader Trek with JBL Charge 3.
Front view of the JBL Charge 3.

Pairing Victor Reader Trek with JBL Charge 3: Step by Step

1. Power on the Victor Reader Trek

Hold in the round power button, located on the top left side of the Trek, as shown next, until the VRT vibrates. Then, wait for the green power-on lamp to illuminate and the VRT to finish booting.  It’s fully booted once the welcome message plays and the electronic chime sounds.

Picture of the Victor Reader Trek navigator, left side view, showing the power button location and the green power-on lamp glowing.
Victor Reader Trek navigator, left side view, showing the power button location and the green power-on lamp glowing.

2. Turn Off Airplane Mode if it’s On

With airplane mode on, the Victor Reader Trek will be unable to connect either to Wi-Fi or to Bluetooth devices. So, you must turn airplane mode off. When the online status lamp, as shown next, either glows solidly or is flashing, this means that airplane mode is definitely off and the unit is trying to connect to an in-range Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth device. When the lamp is dark, this COULD mean that airplane mode is on. But it also could mean that, though airplane mode is OFF, that there is nonetheless, no current Wi-Fi connection established. The Trek can indeed be offline (not connected to the internet) even though airplane mode is off.





So, verify that your airplane mode is indeed OFF by pressing and holding the Online button (the circular button with the Wi-Fi symbol in the top row of keys on the front of the unit), until the Trek announces airplane mode status. If it says, “Airplane mode OFF,” then you’re good to go. If it says, “Airplane mode ON,” then press and hold the Online button again until it announces, “Airplane mode OFF.”

Note that you need not be connected to a Wi-Fi network in order to pair with the JBL Charge 3 Bluetooth speaker. But again, airplane mode MUST be disabled.

Picture of the Victor Reader Trek -Online- lamp glowing amber, and highlighted. Indicates that airplane mode is OFF, and therefore, that the Trek can connect to Bluetooth devices and / or Wii-Fi networks.
Victor Reader Trek -Online- lamp glowing amber, and highlighted. Indicates that airplane mode is OFF, and therefore, that the Trek can connect to Bluetooth devices and / or Wii-Fi networks.

3. Next, Turn On your Speaker to Continue with Pairing Victor Reader Trek with JBL Charge 3

Here, we’re using the JBL Charge 3 portable speaker for this demo, as shown next.

Picture of the JBL Charge 3, powered off. Showing the -Power- button. Pairing Victor Reader Trek with JBL Charge 3.
The JBL Charge 3, powered off. Showing the -Power- button.

For that speaker, the power button is located on the speaker’s control panel, across the top of the unit, as pointed at by the green arrow in the last picture. Now to turn on the Charge 3, we quickly press and release the power button. This turns the speaker on.

Picture of the JBL Charge powered On, not paired. Showing the glowing white -power- button.
The JBL Charge powered On, not paired. Showing the glowing white -power- button.

If yours does not enter discovery mode (power lamp glows solid white after power up instead of flashing white), then quickly press and release the Bluetooth discovery mode button on the Charge 3, as shown next.

Picture of the -Bluetooth Pairing- button.
The -Bluetooth Pairing- button.

When the speaker has entered pairing mode (power lamp flashing blue as we show next), move on to the next step.

Picture of the -Power- button flashing blue on the JBL Charge 3.
The -Power- button blinking blue on the JBL Charge 3.

4. Scan for the JBL Charge 3 on the Victor Reader Trek

To do that, make sure the VRT is working with the online bookshelves by quickly pressing and releasing its Online button until the Trek announces, “Online bookshelves.”

Then quickly press and release the star (*) key once and then the 7 key twice (*77). The Trek then announces, “Bluetooth.”

Then, quickly press and release the 8 key, until the VRT announces, “Connect to Bluetooth device.”

Finally, press the pound (#) key. This starts the Trek scanning for Bluetooth devices, and it announces this by saying, “Scanning for Bluetooth devices.”

The scan is complete when the Trek announces the number of Bluetooth devices it discovered, as in, “3 devices found.”

5. Select your JBL Charge 3 from the List of Found Devices on the Trek

Use the 2 and 8 keys to move up and down in the list of found devices, until the Trek announces the name of your speaker. In this demo it found our speaker, named JBL Charge 3.





6. Connect the Victor Reader Trek to your JBL Charge 3

With the list cursor currently pointing at your speaker, press the # key. This starts the connection process.

After a short pause, the VRT establishes a connection with the speaker, announcing this by saying, “Connected to <your device name>.”

Once the VRT is paired with your speaker, you should now hear any audio that would normally come from the Trek, now emanating from the Charge 3 you just successfully paired. The power button glows solid blue, as shown next.

Picture of the -Power- button steadily glowing blue.
The -Power- button steadily glowing blue.

7. Done with Pairing Victor Reader Trek with JBL Charge 3 !

We’ve now successfully paired our JBL Charge 3 with the Humanware Victor Reader Trek talking book player and talking GPS navigator.

About Memorized Speakers

Once you add your speaker to the previously paired devices list on the Trek, your Victor Reader will connect to it again when it’s Bluetooth is turned on and it detects that speaker is activated and in Bluetooth range. With our Charge 3, we just turn the speaker on and it automatically reconnects, without doing anything further.

Problems You May See

Note that as of this writing, the announcements made by the Trek are sometimes wrong. E.g. Sometimes, when you scan for devices, the list of devices it found does not include your speaker. We’ve found that often, doing a second or third device scan will find the Charge 3.

It also happens at times that once you located your wireless speaker in the list and press the # key to connect to it, that the Trek will initially announce, “Connected to Bluetooth device.” But then a second or two later, it announces, “Failed to connect to Bluetooth device.”

Again, the answer here is to run the scan and connect attempt again. Do this by pressing the star key to leave the Bluetooth menu, then repeat steps 4 through 6 in this procedure. Keep repeating until you successfully establish a Bluetooth connection with the Charge 3.

Related Posts to Pairing Victor Reader Trek with JBL Charge 3

    1. How to Pair Victor Reader Trek with JBL Flip 2
    2. Sony SRS XB40 Pairing
    3. Pairing Victor Reader Trek with JBL Clip 3

Other Posts About the JBL Charge 3

    1. Pairing JBL Charge 3 with Google Home Instructions
    2. JBL Charge 3 Low Frequency Mode, How to Switch It
    3. Updating Firmware on JBL Charge 3, How To

References for these Pairing Victor Reader Trek with JBL Charge 3

    1. JBL Charge 3 Portable Bluetooth Speaker and Power Bank Product Page on JBL.com
    2. Humanware Victor Reader Trek (VRT) Product Page on Humanware.com

Revision History

    • 2022-12-02: Updated links.
    • 2020-04-21: Added more tags.
    • 2019-04-05: Removed ad code and tweaked the key phrase targeting.
    • 2018-07-15: First published.