Getting to True (and Non-Captive) Wireless Stereo

Wireless stereo earbuds are super-convenient but are locked into proprietary solutions. Consumer-friendly solutions need to be interoperable. In the world of wireless earbuds we fairly quickly recognized, after Apple introduced AirPods, that earbuds connected by a strap were truly unconvincing in their claim to be truly wireless. Why did those other products even start with a strap? Mostly to keep power consumption down and to synchronize between left and right speakers, both of which become trickier if the speakers are really unconnected.