Bowers & Wilkins partners with laser projector brand

Audio brand Bowers & Wilkins has collaborated with Chinese projection brand Formovie, a Xiaomi ecological-chain company, to launch an ultra-short throw, consumer laser projector with an integrated Bowers & Wilkins sound system.

Initially available only in mainland China, the new TriColor laser projector Formovie T1 hopes to excite the Ultra Short Throw projector market by offering the sound quality normally reserved for an external system or sound bar, fully integrated into the compact enclosure of a UST laser projector.

The Bowers & Wilkins stereo sound system onboard features two forward firing 70mm glass-fibre LF/MF drivers and two 20mm titanium tweeters, all mounted in their own, rigid ABS+GF enclosures, located at the outer edges of the front baffle.

All of Bowers & Wilkins speaker technologies and products are developed at the company’s SRE R&D centre in Horsham, England. The same engineering team working on all projects for consistency

Providing amplification is a 2 x 15W TI-sourced power plant, while a Dolby MS12 decoder is bolstered by B&W’s own engineer tuned sound modes.

The result, it says, is ‘a large scale, high-resolution, impactful sound that offers both crisp dialogue, uncoloured mid-range and good bass extension, all widely projected deep into the room and well beyond the confines of the speaker enclosure.’


The 4k UHD projector features ALPD RGB+ laser display technology and a TI DLP image engine. Brightness is rated at 2800 ANSI, with wide colour gamut support, and a native contrast ratio of 3000:1.

While largely unknown in the West, Formovie laser projectors were apparently the first ultra-short throw models to receive THX certification and are among the few Dolby Vision compliant.

The T1 Formovie laser projector also offers HDR10, HDR10+ compatibility with Dolby Atmos and DTS HD decoding in a compact body (540w x 330d x107hmm), and has an ultra-short throw ratio of 0.23:1.

It’s possible to project a 100-inch image with the projector just 20cm from a wall.

Commenting on the new partnership Dave Sheen at Sound United said: ‘Bowers & Wilkins currently enjoys a number of partnerships with like-minded, world beating companies and we are delighted to add Formovie to that list. Our partnership will allow the superior performance of Bowers & Wilkins True Sound to be included in a new product category and a new form factor. I look forward to working on many more projects together’.