As promised by B&W earlier this year, they have now added Alexa support on Formation line. However, those who are hoping Google Assistant to come next have a disappointing news.
We also immediately asked Bowers & Wilkins about the support for the Google Assistant, but unfortunately there was no positive message. Since Google expects speakers who want to support the speech assistant to use Google’s wireless technology, Bowers & Wilkins cannot integrate the speech assistant. The British manufacturer has developed its own wireless communication technology for Formation and does not want to make any adjustments to this. Users of the Formation products can therefore only control their speakers in the future with Amazon’s Alexa speech assistant.
Homecinema Magazine (Translated)
One noteworthy fact, Homecinema Magazine mentioned is
Behind the scenes, Bowers & Wilkins is working hard on integration with other platforms, and in particular the larger parties in the field of home automation. For example, this year an api must be published with which the Formation system can be linked to the systems of Crestron, Control4 and Savant, among others.
Homecinema Magazine (Translated)
It seems a common theme or perhaps requirement for these wireless speaker platform to evolve over the course. However, since the release of the first version back in Spring 2019, Formation line has been criticized for lack of features. So knowing that B&W are working actively beyond standard/core feature seem to illustrate company’s future support of the platform.