The Sony SRS XB01 personal Bluetooth speaker has several buttons on its top panel, including the Volume, Phone-Play-Pause, and Power-Pairing buttons. We also have the Reset buttons on the top right side of the unit, inside the port compartment. So here we offer our Sony SRS XB01 buttons explained guide. We show you where each control is on the XB01, explain its meaning and function, what any button codes do, when to press them, and how to use the buttons to work the speaker in general.
Sony SRS XB01 Buttons Explained
There are two rows of buttons on the top of this Bluetooth speaker that all have unique shapes. Furthermore, there are two lights in the front grill of the unit as well. The lamps tell you what the speaker is doing (or not doing). The Power / Pairing Status lamp lights in either solid, fast, or slow blinking blue, to show the current speaker pairing and power situation. Plus, there’s a CHARGE lamp near the top right corner on the front of the unit that flashes when the battery is getting low. It also glows steadily as you recharge the speaker. Finally, there’s the micro USB charging, and auxiliary (AUX) input ports inside the hidden port compartment on the top right side.
Sony SRS XB01 Buttons Explained: The Power / Pairing Button
The Pairing / Power button, we find at the right top corner of the buttons panel, as we point out with the green arrow in the next picture. Note its power symbol shape.
Turning the XB01 ON and OFF
Press and release the button when the speaker is OFF, to power it on. Press and release it again, to turn the XB01 back OFF.
The Bluetooth / Power Status lamp lights up when the speaker powers up, as we see next.
But the speaker makes no sound during booting, and none when you switch it OFF. Now it does play some beeps when it pairs with a nearby Bluetooth device. So you will hear that signal upon booting if the auto pairing happens.
Now when the speaker is OFF, no lights on it should glow, except in the case where you’re charging the unit. When OFF in that scenario, the CHARGE lamp still glows solid orange.
Activating Pairing Mode on the SRS XB01
With the speaker powered ON, you press and hold the same button until you hear two high beeps. Then release it. The speaker is now in pairing mode, and the blue Status lamp pictured above begins fast flashing.
You must do this anytime you wish to connect the XB01 with a never-before-paired Bluetooth source device. When in this (a.k.a. Discovery) mode, the speaker sends out its name and other pairing info over the Bluetooth air channels. Then, this invites nearby BT devices to find and connect to it. Don’t release this button too quickly though, lest you power the speaker OFF, without putting it in pairing mode.
Sony SRS XB01 Buttons Explained: The Volume Down and Volume Up Buttons
The XB01 also has volume controls. The Volume UP and Volume DOWN buttons occupy the two positions on the right half of the buttons panel. Plus, they have minus and plus symbols embossed on them that you can feel. Find these controls pointed out in the next picture.
When pressed, these lower and raise the loudness respectively. Further, they do this by changing the volume setting on the source device itself, the same as many other BT speakers.
The Status lamp flashes once for each time you press a volume button, except when you hit the lower or upper ends of the volume range. Then it fast blinks a few times. Finally, no beeps or other accessibility sounds play when you change the volume.
Note that you can also change XB01 volume by adjusting the controls on your source BT device.
How to Raise (Turn Up) and Lower (Turn Down) Sony SRS XB01 Volume
With the speaker paired and playing, press the minus shaped Volume Down button to decrease the sound. Press the plus shaped Volume Up button to raise it.
Note that these loudness controls have no effect when the speaker is not paired. Also, the volume setting may change from source device to device. That is, each paired device remembers its own volume setting. So you might need to re set the this control when you connect the XB01 to a different source device.
The Play-Pause / Voice Assistant Button
The Play-Pause / Voice Assistant button has a tactile right pointing triangle and two vertical lines in it. We find it at the second position in from the left edge of the buttons panel. See it pointed out in the next picture.
How to Answer A Call
Press and release the Play-Pause button quickly to answer a call when you have this unit paired with a cell phone. Rapidly press it again to disconnect from the call, and resume playback. Note that the item you were listening to pauses when you pick up the call, and resumes when you hang up.
How to Stop and Resume Music Playback
To halt music playback on the speaker, quickly press and release this button. Play immediately stops by putting your source device into pause. To resume playback, simply do the same, and rapidly press and release the button again. Then if you are listing to a music file, playback will resume where you paused it.
How to Raise a Voice Assistant
When paired with an Apple device, you may press and hold the Play / Pause button on the XB01 to get Siri’s attention. Note that you must first activate Siri on the source device (phone, tablet) in order for this to work.
Press an hold the Voice Assistant Action button until you hear the Siri chime. Then, make your request. Finally, after Siri responds, the system resumes playing what you were listening to before.
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 XB 01. 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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Sony SRS XB01 Buttons Explained: The Reset Button
Find this recessed button in the port compartment, between the the Audio Input and USB Input ports, as we see next. To work it, open the port door, insert a paper clip end, and gently press.
Now unlike reset buttons on many other speakers, this button does NOT return the XB01 to its factory default state. Alternatively, you press this only when the speaker becomes unresponsive or otherwise misbehaves. E.g. It won’t power ON or OFF, or the other buttons do nothing when you press them. So pressing Reset does not clear the stored Bluetooth pairings from memory.
It does appear though, to disconnect the speaker from the battery by brute force. Therefore, pressing it causes a hard shutdown to happen. Further, releasing it applies battery power once more. You can then turn the speaker on with the Power button.
The hope with this sort of reset, is that the unit will again respond to other button presses when cold started after a Reset button press. But again, this does NOT do a hard reset. For that, see the reset code combination section.
How to Use the Reset Button
Should the speaker lock up or become non responsive to button presses, press and release this button. If the Power lamp is ON, it should shut OFF right away.
The Reset Button Code Combination
Note that this is different from the Reset button described in the last section. This method is how to actually factory reset the XB01 to return it to factory default settings. The Reset button discussed earlier does not do this though. But it is possible to run a true hard reset on this Bluetooth speaker as follows.
With the XB01 switched ON, press and hold the Power-Pairing and both Volume buttons at the same time until the Status lamp starts fast blue flashing. See these buttons pointed at by the yellow arrows in the next picture.
You may wish to reset the speaker to fix any weird behaviors you notice from it such as failing to pair, sound distortion, failure to power off when you press the Power button, pressing the Reset button does not solve your issue, et al. Note that this master reset erases any saved sync info about this speaker on your source Bluetooth devices. So you’ll have to forget those connections on these devices, and re pair the speaker after a reset in order to play your audio content through it once again.
For more details, check out our post that describes How to Reset Sony SRS XB01 Tiny Bluetooth Speaker.
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Revision History
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- 2021-09-29: First posted.