Summit Was Renamed WiSA Technologies to 'Reinforce the Brand,' Says CEO

Summit Wireless changed its name to WiSA Technologies “to reinforce the brand of WiSA for the world and the consumer,” said CEO Brett Moyer Friday on the company’s Q4 earnings call.

Moyer referenced a “large market below” that it hasn’t been able to address because of the cost structure of its current high-resolution offering that’s built into relatively high-end speakers from Bang & Olufsen, Enclave and others. “There are other products that we have not talked about because they have not been WiSA-certified,” Moyer said, “so we are changing the name to aggregate all our activity.”

Under the new structure, WiSA’s ODM customers will continue to interact with former Summit Wireless sales and engineering teams as WiSA Technologies, “which is what they’ve been doing,” he said. The consumer- and retail-facing Wireless Speaker and Audio Association will continue to operate as a separate company “that does the matchmaking at retail” and interoperability testing, he said.

WiSA still believes interoperability “is important for some segments of the market,” Moyer said, referencing first-generation WiSA product at the high end of its portfolio. The interoperability brand of WiSA will be known as WiSA HT, with price and performance targeted to the audiophile and high-end TV customer, Moyer said. Those are currently built into Bang & Olufsen and select Skyworth and TCL TVs, he said.

The company has started porting its IP onto chips from Espressif and Realtek for lower end applications, Moyer said. It set up a team in India to develop a software version of WiSA technology so it can be embedded in TVs, set-top boxes or smart phones. Products with the Realtek modules are slated to appear in WiSA E speakers and sound bars launching late this year, Moyer said. The India team is developing software that will be available via license via WiSA DS products that enable wireless audio transmission from smart devices to speakers; those products are on the 2023 road map.

Moyer said WiSA can now "talk about products that we have not talked with you or other people about,” he said, noting they weren’t viewable at the wisaassociation.org website previously. It expects to launch a new website Monday. He cited sofas from Lovesac with first-generation WiSA StealthTech that “makes the subwoofer rumble and shake the sofa module.” He also mentioned KEF speakers for “high-quality audio listening,” and Savant models that have been WiSA-certified.

The Harman Kardon Citation speaker line has WiSA tech, along with a $40,000 Lexicon speaker system, Moyer said, referencing the “breadth” of WiSA design wins. Visibility of products from well-known brands will help raise the profile for WiSA, he said, noting the company wasn’t able to address the consumer market before except through its Enclave and Platin Audio brands. “Now we’re able to have conversations with product management, technical engineering teams,” on its association with high-profile brands, he said.

WiSA had a drop in business in Q1 because of supply chain delays that resulted in product being delivered after Christmas. Consumer brands with WiSA technology are “sorting through how to clean up their inventory positions before they go to the 2022 Christmas build,” Moyer said. The company had a pickup after the Lunar New Year and hasn't had any design losses or end of life cycles, he said. The company believes softness is a first-half issue, and purchase orders are coming in for new designs, Moyer said.

WiSA’s Q4 revenue grew 93% to $2 million year on year; its net loss narrowed to $3.1 million from $3.7 million. Full-year revenue projection is for 30-50% growth vs. 2021. Shares dropped 12.5% Friday to close at $1.12.