How to Tell if Sony SRS XP500 is Charging

Sony SRS XP500 Charging Indicator on the -Home- Page in the Sony Music Center app on iPadOS.

How to tell if Sony SRS XP500 karaoke party speaker is charging? This water resistant speaker has an orange LED light just below and to the left of the Power button, as we see in the next pic. This light, labeled as the CHARGE lamp, flashes orange when the battery is almost dead. So it does tell battery level (to a degree). When the speaker is not on the charge and this lamp pulses ON and OFF in slow flashes it’s telling you to CHARGE the speaker. This means that the speaker will soon shut down. But also, to see if the XP500 is in fact charging, check out this LED for this as well. We explain how to interpret it next.

How to Tell that the Sony SRS XP500 is Charging: Summary

Connected and working power cable.
The CHARGE lamp glows steadily.
The speaker typically heats slightly as well as hums.
Battery percentage increases gradually, which you can monitor in the Sony Music Center app, or by pressing the BATTERY button on the speaker.
The CHARGE light eventually goes out.
The XP500 reports that battery is fully charged after charging. This is also evidence that charging was indeed happening.

How to Tell if Sony SRS XP500 is Charging: Detailed Steps

Connect the Unit to AC Power

Of course, you can rest assured that the speaker is NOT charging with no power cord feeding the speaker.

Check that the CHARGE LED is Glowing Steady Orange

You can tell if the Sony SRS XP500 is charging if this light glows a solid orange. This steady glow happens only while charging. But when no charger is powering the unit, this light blinks when the battery has about run all the way out of power. Otherwise, it is dark.

If the XP 500 CHARGE lamp flashes when the AC power cord is connected, then the speaker is likely NOT charging. So you should check that both your cable and power source are okay. Try a new cheater cable. You want this light glowing without blinking to know for sure that the XP500 is charging.

Shows the Charge lamp glowing on the Sony SRS XP500 speaker top.

Check XP500 Speaker Temperature

The button panel on the XP 500, or the area in and around the rear port compartment may warm a little as well as charging. This warmth is a good sign that speaker charging is happening, so long as there’s neither too much heating, nor none at all.

As speaker recharging advances, the CHARGE LED keeps glowing. But unlike some other popular wireless speakers, the XP500 gives no visual reading of just how far along the charging is, just that it is still in progress.

Listen for a Low Hum

During XP500 charging, if you press an ear to the sides or back of the speaker, you will likely hear a 60 or 120 Hertz hum. Testing shows that this hum disappears once the speaker battery finishes charging.

Ask the XP500 to Tell You Battery Full Percentage While it Charges

But you can hear how charging is progressing, by powering up the speaker, and then briefly pressing the Battery-Battery Care button, found just above the ports panel in the rear of the speaker. Pressing this gets the 500 to speak the current percentage of charge in the battery, in a female voice.

The -Battery-Battery Care- button on the back of the speaker.

When the CHARGE LED Darkens, Charging is Complete

The battery charge cycle is finished when the CHARGE LED goes dark.

The dark Charge lamp.

Even with the charger cord still powering the unit, the CHARGE lamp stops glowing when the battery hits the full mark. We see this in the last picture above. The speaker indeed no longer recharges when the light goes out.

Finally, Unplug the SRS XP500 and Boot It

With the power cable disconnected, we cannot know just by reading the CHARGE or Status LEDs, just how much the SRS XP500 actually recharged, only that it did charge some. It typically does charge to full though, as long as we wait until the CHARGE lamp goes out before unplugging the adapter. Note that if this lamp does not flash when you next start the speaker, then the battery likely did charge.

Again though, we can press the Battery-Battery Care button when the speaker is running, and if charging completed properly, it will say, “Fully charged,” to us in the lady’s voice.