Charge light won't turn green!

I pulled my new 2G iPod shuffle out of the box two
days ago and immediatley hooked it up to my Windows
XP to be charged. My recently updated iTunes
recognized it and uploaded music onto it, and now
I've been waiting for probably close to 8 hours for
the shuffle to be fully charged. But the light will
not turn green!?

Disconnect it, use it, and then plug it in again to recharge WHEN the battery status LED turns orange (or RED).
2nd Gen Shuffle seems to take several shots a charging before it settles down to a more reasonable 4 or 5 hour fully charged cycle. Make sure that your computer doesn't go to sleep while Shuffle is in the dock being charged.

But, shouldn't if make sense for the light to turn green once the battery has charged to a certain level? Does anybody know what that level is (or your opinion of what it should be)? It doesn't make sense to me that the light won't turn green in the charger until 100% capacity is reached, for that could take a long time (if ever). Any clue other than approximate time-in-dock to know how much we've charged the battery?

It seems like there should be some sort of indicator on the settings menu of the iPod, at least, so we can check battery status with a bit more accuracy than red/amber/green light when powered on - including approx % of battery capacity at current charge, and current charge mode (full charge cycle vs. trickle).

Would this require a software update we should all clamor for, or is such a feature unnecessary in your opinion?

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A

I've been having this problem too. I played 5 songs with it and charged it. It's been 8 hours since I put it back in the dock and it's still not green.

Take it out of the Dock, use it for some time, then try charging. They don't need to be and should not be left in the dock for extended periods of time.

How about this one: I charged to green, took the Shuffle off the dock, then a few minutes later remembered that I had not added a song. When I put the Shuffle back on the dock, the light was then orange. I waited for about an hour but green never came back so I gave up and removed it. I've never had a device that was so difficult to reliably charge.

How about this one: I charged to green, took the
Shuffle off the dock, then a few minutes later
remembered that I had not added a song. When I put
the Shuffle back on the dock, the light was then
orange. I waited for about an hour but green never
came back so I gave up and removed it. I've never
had a device that was so difficult to reliably charge.

You probably won't believe this BUT it's ABSOLUTELY NORMAL
behavior. Th eShuffle goes into "trickle" charge mode when it's more than 80% charged. Basically, don't worry about it!

But, shouldn't if make sense for the light to turn
green once the battery has charged to a certain
level? Does anybody know what that level is (or your
opinion of what it should be)? It doesn't make sense
to me that the light won't turn green in the charger
until 100% capacity is reached, for that could take a
long time (if ever). Any clue other than approximate
time-in-dock to know how much we've charged the
battery?

100%, eg COMPLETELY CHARGED is the point where the
status LED turns green when connected to a powered USB port.

AS LONG AS the battery has more than 30% the status light is green when ON/OFF switch is cycled when disconnected from the dock.

The Shuffle has 2 different charging regimes:
"quick" charge to 80%, around 2 hours, and
"trickle" charge, which may take several more hours until "green"...

It seems like there should be some sort of indicator
on the settings menu of the iPod, at least, so we can
check battery status with a bit more accuracy than
red/amber/green light when powered on - including
approx % of battery capacity at current charge, and
current charge mode (full charge cycle vs. trickle).

Would this require a software update we should all
clamor for, or is such a feature unnecessary in your
opinion?

Did you read the iPod Shuffle Features Guide?

Yes, I read the features guide. Of course, there may have been things I missed or forgotten, but..... Sheesh.

The point I tried to convey in my post is that it would make more sense, to me, to have some way of knowing the status of the charge -- how much is currently there, and for those people that are interested, the charging mode (quick vs trickle, yes I know redundant if it switches faithfully ever time at 80% charge, but redundancy might be user-friendly for those people that haven't tattooed the user's guide backwards to their forehead).

The issue here is that the light doesn't seem to turn green, EVER, for people that are leaving their shuffle in the dock for HOURS on end. According to the guide, the iPod should be fully charged in about 4 hours, which means the light should turn green by then, but this isn't happening. Why is this so? Does this then indicate that the iPod battery is never being charged to 100% capacity? This, I think, would bother some users (as evidenced by this thread and others). How do we know how much charge our iPod is really receiving? I'm not an expert on the electrochemical reactions of it all, but does the trickle charge actually slow down as the battery charge increases? Does this translate to the paradox of if a person takes a step exaclty half the length of his previous stride, he'll never cross the finish line? It seems like Apple would do good to address such issues, perhaps in an updated version of users guide that you seem to be so found of, because obviously there are concerns from the end user that are not addressed in the Apple literature but are instead discussed on the appropriate forums.

The questions remain: Does it mean that my iPod not charging to full capacity because the LED isn't green in the dock? Without any sort of battery status indicator except for the very vague red/amber/green lights when powering on, how do I know how long I actually need to leave my iPod in the dock to reach the charge that I desire?

At least, those are the concerns of the community as I see them. Just thought I'd chime into the discussion because my iPod shuffle has been connected to my computer for the last 4+ hours and that darn light is still orange. Go figure.

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A

The questions remain: Does it mean that my iPod not
charging to full capacity because the LED isn't green
in the dock? Without any sort of battery status
indicator except for the very vague red/amber/green
lights when powering on, how do I know how long I
actually need to leave my iPod in the dock to reach
the charge that I desire?

Until the status light turns green...while Shuffle's in the dock...

At least, those are the concerns of the community as
I see them. Just thought I'd chime into the
discussion because my iPod shuffle has been connected
to my computer for the last 4+ hours and that darn
light is still orange. Go figure.

In my experience, and in the experience of the many 2nd Gen Shuffle owners expressing concern over charging time, it takes longer than 4 hours to fully charge the Shuffle out of the box (more like 6 to 8...), and can take much longer even on successive chargings. Eventually, successive charging cycles will get shorter...and the status light should turn green (as mentioned in my previous answer) which happens to coincide with "fully charged".

Apple could have done a better job in documenting the process and estimating the time to fully charged...

It turned green again.

Seems to me that Apple really should put something inthe documentation that explains the fact that the first few charges take more than double the ADVERTISED charge time of 4 hours. It'd be nice if they would save people the headache of trying to figure out what is up.

Seems to me that Apple really should put something
inthe documentation that explains the fact that the
first few charges take more than double the
ADVERTISED charge time of 4 hours. It'd be nice if
they would save people the headache of trying to
figure out what is up.

Isn't that what I just got through saying?