Bragi has to break bad news to customers awaiting its new wireless earbuds, The Headphone. The cord-free gadget performed well in our testing of a pre-production sample, but Bragi sent a note to customers on Monday that informed pre-order buyers they likely wouldn’t be receiving their order in time for Christmas, owing to a slower than expected production process.
The company had originally targeted November for shipping, and then pushed that to early December. It originally intended to ship The Headphone to all pre-order customers who placed an order prior to December 1 to arrive in time for December 25. Bragi says that this then became impossible, as its “precision process” for production couldn’t generate the yield volume necessary while also maintaining quality.
Bragi still wants to assure any pre-order customers who actually do manage to receive their order that the quality will be reliable, and it’s also trying to make up to miffed pre-order buyers who purchased The Headphone anytime in 2016 with an extension on their warranty to allow for an extra 30 days.
Meanwhile, Bragi says it’s working on improving the production process to help it achieve the volume it’s after.
Based on our experience, the product people eventually get shouldn’t disappoint, but customers who bought this hoping to receive them before Apple shipped its own AirPods wireless headphones probably aren’t pleased, since customers started receiving those early this week.