Major iF design award for Signia’s Active Pro hearing aid, for not making people feel old

And the stigma-busting form factor of the Active Pro is what impressed the jury, which saw Signia as the creator of a solution to help people with hearing loss overcome the psychological hurdle of wearing hearing aids. Indeed, shaping a hearing aid to look like an earbud has also won a different award this month—Red Dot Design—for another manufacturer, Phonak, with its Virto Marvel Black hearing aid, so the earbud disguise strategy is getting attention.

The iF Industrie Forum Design, which confers these iF awards, began recognising excellence and boosting awareness in good design in 1953. Across various disciplines, it now sifts up to 10,000 entries in any given year from design-conscious outfits looking to walk away with an iF symbol of the vanguard in form, aesthetic quality, ergonomics, and user-focused efficiency.

This is what the iF jury had to say about Signia’s win in the Product Design category: “Globally 466m people suffer from hearing loss. Only 17% of those who could benefit from a hearing aid actually use one. Unaddressed hearing loss poses an annual global cost of US$ 750 billion (WHO). Interventions to help address hearing loss are cost-effective and beneficial to people’s health, wellbeing, and overall quality of life. Traditional hearing aids often carry a stigma and are perceived as old fashioned and make people feel old. This means that many people who would benefit greatly from a hearing aid, are not willing to even try one. Signia have created a compelling solution to help people overcome this psychological hurdle.”

This award follows up on another win for Signia, in March 2018, for the Signia Styletto hearing aid.

“Signia Active Pro is the third unique solution that Signia has launched in the past few years to help drive adoption and acceptance of hearing care solutions, the invisible Signia Silk, the award-winning Signia Styletto and now the award-winning Signia Active Pro,” said Global Chief Marketing Officer at Signia, Maarten Barmentlo.

Source: iF/Signia