Widex SmartRIC Hearing Aid Wins Again – This Time the 2024 Golden A’ Design Award

LYNGE, DENMARK, May 28, 2024 – Golden A’ Design Award is the latest in a string of awards recognizing Widex SmartRIC as a breakthrough hearing aid that melds premium performance and modern, stylish design.

Widex today announced that its new Widex SmartRIC hearing aid has been awarded the Golden A’ Design Award in the Medical Devices and Medical Equipment Design category for introducing new angles of natural hearing through its industry-first L-shape design.

The A’ Design Awards, recognizing excellent and original design work from across the globe, represents one of the highest achievements in design and a source of inspiration for award-winning designers, artists, architects, brands, and design agencies.

Golden level A’ Design winners scored in the top 3% of all entries judged by the Grand Jury panel of the A’ Design Award & Competition. Comprised of influential press members, established designers, leading academics, and prominent entrepreneurs worldwide, entries are judged on characteristics such as design, usability, functionality, engineering, and more.

Widex SmartRIC’s L-shaped form factor creates a wearer experience that’s modern, stylish, and comfortable, while also delivering new benefits that optimize audiological performance. While sleek and stylish, the L-shape – unlike anything on the market – improves more than aesthetics. It allows for better microphone placement to enhance directionality and improve signal-to-noise ratio – resulting in improved speech targeting and reduced background noise to help wearers connect with the world around them.

Claudia Schiffhauer, Head of Brand, Widex said:

The SmartRIC’s inspiration was to overcome one of the most commonly-reported challenges for hearing aid wearers: hearing in noisy environments. Improved microphone placement was essential in delivering on this challenge, but performance couldn’t come at the expense of design.

That led us to the creation of the world’s first L-shape hearing aid that both improves audiological performance while setting a new standard in hearing aid design. This award is a testament to the exceptional talent, creativity, and dedication demonstrated by our team in crafting an elegant device that helps wearers engage in every social situation and live more connected lives.

Widex SmartRIC’s pioneering L-shape places the device higher up on the wearer’s ear, ensuring the angle between the device’s two microphones becomes closer to horizontal. This allows the microphones to better align with the user’s primary focus, following their conversational focus to create a better hearing experience.

Alongside the L-shaped form factor, Widex made several other design enhancements to deliver a dependable and intuitive solution that wearers can depend on wherever they go.

Newly designed microphone inlets are engineered to limit distracting wind and touch noise, while wearers remain empowered with hassle-free charging, mobility, and peace of mind through Widex’ first-ever portable charging solution.

Sleek and compact for easy placement in a pocket or bag, the case can fully charge the hearing aids in four hours, or add eight hours of continuous use through a 30-minute fast charge. LED indicators provide an instant view of charging status, giving wearers confidence that their hearing aids are ready when needed.

This honor adds to a growing list of design-focused award wins for the Widex brand, including four Red Dot Design awards, as well as additional recognition from the Good Design Awards and German Design Awards – highlighting the company’s steadfast commitment to pushing the boundaries of technological performance without sacrificing aesthetics.

For more information on Widex SmartRIC, click here. For high-res images, click here.

About Widex

Widex, one of the world’s leading brands for hearing aids, was founded in Denmark in 1956. Since our beginning, our ambition has been to create the absolute best hearing aids to deliver the most natural sound. The pursuit of natural sound guides everything we do. Leading audiological research, quality craftsmanship, intuitive design, and exceptional support all play essential roles. Yet, it is the unique technology behind natural sound that truly sets us apart. With each technical advancement, we get closer to the ultimate achievement – sound so natural you can forget about your hearing loss. Sound like no other, naturally perfect.