We’re thrilled to announce that Ammunition and Eargo took home Gold in the Medical & Health category at the 2018 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) from the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). This year’s jury of global design experts chose winners from a field of nearly 1,900 entries, selecting 145 winners, 32 of which are Gold winners.
Eargo was also awarded the Jury Chair’s Award, chosen by IDEA 2018 Jury Chair Michael Kahwaji, IDSA. “This design truly improves the human condition, making it worthy of IDSA’s highest honor,” remarked IDEA 2018 juror Cory Herbst, IDSA.
Eargo is a new kind of hearing device that works with earbuds that are virtually invisible. We designed a brand, product and service around the earbuds that empower people with better hearing.
There’s a lot of stigma around wearing hearing aids, especially for individuals in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s—Boomers and Gen-Xers who aren’t in a rush to buy traditional hearing aids, but whose lives could be improved by wearing them. Our challenge was to shape a product experience that appeals to this audience in a new way and fits into their more active lifestyles.
Our goal was to design a useful, usable and beautiful portable charger that would be as discreet as Eargo earbuds, and help to solve one of the biggest pain points when it comes to hearing aids: making sure they have enough power. As Eargo is sold direct-to-consumer, the charger also needed to be straightforward to use right out of the box, and easy to handle for older customers.
The design language for Eargo was inspired by consumer technology rather than medical devices, and it defies the notion that hearing aids can’t be both beautiful and desirable. Eargo’s portable charger has an ergonomic pebble-shaped design that gives it an organic, premium feel with soft-touch material that’s comfortable to hold. It’s also designed to be discreet enough to fit into a purse or pocket.
The starting price for Eargo is $1,950 a pair–significantly less than the average cost of hearing aids prescribed by professional audiologists. In a market dominated by products that make people feel as though they are less than others, Eargo combines technology and design to augment abilities, and give people more control over their health.