After Delay, Bowers & Wilkins Is Selling Its First True Wireless Earphones

After a delay from fall, Bowers & Wilkins began selling its PI7 and PI5 headphones Wednesday, its first true wireless designs. “We were in a position late last year where we could have considered launching,” Andy Kerr, director-marketing and communications, told Consumer Electronics Daily, but the company’s in-house software development team, brought in to create a music app for the Formation line, highlighted areas where the user experience for the earbuds could be improved, he said. That, combined with COVID-19 supply chain and “manufacturing resource issues,” affected timelines, Kerr said. With both items addressed, the company is in full production on the in-ear headphones that have Siri and Google Assistant voice support. The high-end PI7 ($399) model supports Qualcomm aptX Adaptive Bluetooth transmission from compatible mobile devices and has 24-bit/48kHz wireless transmission between each earbud. The PI7s also have adaptive noise cancellation to automatically monitor, analyze and adapt to surroundings, making the PI7 one of a few true wireless headphones to support hi-res audio from music source to the user’s ears, said the company. Users can connect the PI7’s smart charging case to an external audio source -- such as an in-flight entertainment system -- by 3.5mm or USB cable and then wirelessly retransmit audio from that source to the earbuds, said the company. The $249 PI5s have standard aptX. B&W decided to stay out of the true wireless category “until we could access new technologies that would help us deliver the performance we wanted,” Kerr said. He noted the company also leaned on lessons from its five-year history in the wireless headphone category. On why B&W limited voice assistant support to Google and Apple, Kerr said voice support is linked to users’ phones rather than embedded in the devices. “So owners of iOS mobile devices access Siri and owners of Android phones get Google Voice Assistant,” which he called sufficient voice support for most mobile phone users. He noted that B&W’s Formation wireless multiroom music products now have Alexa Skills included because Alexa support is suited to home audio applications. The earphones are available from B&W's e-commerce site and authorized dealers.