Microsoft HoloLens wins International Design Excellence Award from IDSA

By Dan Thorp-Lancaster
last updated

HoloLens can add a new award to its mantle thanks to the Industrial Designers Society of America.

Microsoft's HoloLens mixed reality headset is a unique tool not just in the way it functions, but in its design as well. Now, HoloLens has received a bit of formal recognition for the latter thanks to a special award from the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).

At the 37th annual International Design Excellence Awards (IDSA IDEA) for 2017, HoloLens took home the Best in Show Award. HoloLens beat out hundreds of other entries from 54 countries around the world, having received the top "special award" by a panel of judges made up of more than two dozen global design experts. HoloLens joins dozens of other products — including Surface Studio and Surface Dial — that received Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards from the panel, a list of which you can find at the IDSA website.

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A HoloLens successor is already in the works, with Microsoft having recently revealed that it will sport its own dedicated AI coprocessor along its main processing unit. Don't expect a HoloLens 2 to land any time soon, however; a recent reported product roadmap shakeup indicates that a HoloLens followup might not arrive until 2019.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster
Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. 

15 Comments
  • Maybe Consumer's Report will give the HoloLens Headset a must buy rating.  :) Microsoft can design and develop great products.  It's in the supporting side they sometimes lack enthusiasm. 
  • It's not a consumer product. Why would Consumer Reports rate it?
  • I was being sarcastic.  :)
  • True, doe
  • Cool proof of concept for a product that may have real world usage, availability, and be affordable, by average consumers who learn about a similar product through effective marketing sometime in the near, or far, future..............
    🙄
  • Microsoft is doing all of the work to establish serious AR, but the mindshare is going to go to Apple once they release their "revolutionary" iPhone 8 with an AR toolkit to enable more seamless support for games like Pokemon GO. Microsoft is just taking too long to get this to the wider market, which is their classic problem.
  • It will need to be tethered to a phone to transition. People want to be able to take the glasses off. MS has no phones. My guess is they will find a way to make android phones work with it. Otherwise they have to put the chips right in the glasses. Heavy glasses, no phone to go to if you don't want to wear them. Not going to ever make it as a consumer product. It will be 5 years at least. Tethering is a necessary evil at first.
  • No it does not. Hololens it untethered and does not require a phone or any other devices. The chips already are in the glasses and it is not a heavy device to wear. Nothing of what you say it true.
  • I said it will NEED to be tethered. No one will wear that. Are you serious? Do you know any person that owns a pair of glasses? Most people I know hate wearing glasses because they are heavy. They certainly don't want to wear a strap around their head. And MS has gotten hololens down to a more glasses friendly size but all that weight will be its downfall. Most people I know have to purchase extremely expensive glasses made of light material or opt for contact lenses which are also inconvenient. If you want to take the hololens off and just use your phone you can't continue. Again you are living a pipe dream if you think people will just drop their phones and go to wearing glasses 24/7. Yah i'll lay in bed before sleep with this giant thing over my head. A tethered solution is the only solution that will become popular. I guarantee you that Apple will do this just like they did with their watch at first. Except this will be much better than the watch and will allow them to make it fashionable and light. I would never wear that monstrocity on my head in public. I want something fashionable if I have to wear glasses. Something that goes with my style. And Apple will have all sorts of options. MS doesn't know fashion.
  • Hololense is not a consumer product. It is not target that consumers are running around with it on while they go shopping, The target audience for hololense is factory workers, constructions workers etc. People that ALREADY, today, are wearing safety glasses and safety helmets. What you are saying about that people dont want to wear glasses is true, but does not apply in this case. It does however apply to Google Glass.
  • Of course not but for it to be successful it has to become a consumer product. And this is where Apple will scoop up with a tethered solution to their iphones. Apple is the richest company in the world not because it targeted business. They have so much money to spend and are throwing it at AR. MS once again will lag behind.
  • Why does it have to be a consumer product to become succesful? No people work in the part of the world where you are from or what?
  • You have provided all the reasons why glasses will not become succesful among consumers. Who will walk around looking like an idiot? Glasses will be popular in business first and one day, possible first when this tech is the size of a contact lense, it will be popular amongst normal consumers and all Apples money can not change that.
  • It's the tethering portion that can make them viable among consumers because the phone is still the main device for the user. The glasses become supplementary and don't have to be worn 24/7. Even the snapchat glasses sold decent and they look horrible. They aren't a replacement for the phone though. An add on to a phone app.
  • I hear what you say and I dont know. Lets try to break it down at little. We saw with Google Glass that the glasses are not going to take off as something you wanna wear all the time. What about a head piece you, as a consumer, put on sometimes (outside, among people), like you do with sun glasses. Ehhh, not sure that is going to mainstream. Inside your home, especially if you are a gamer, Yes for sure, that we happen and it will be succesful is my guess and that is where the glasses will be in the consumer space for years to come. Amongst gamers. Apple wants to do something with no glasses and using only the phone is my guess. The wanna sell phones. I think it will only become a gimmick at best. That sceanrio doesnt really unleash the full power of AR, but maybe they can do something cool with face time or what their phone app is called.  The real power include some kind of glasses / head gear may it be tethered or not simply because of that fantastic experience it is when an argumented reality is drawn in front of your eyes. That you can not do on a tiny iphone screen. And then we are back to the business scenario and I believe this is where it will take off and it will be Google Glass and Hololense that we be the front runners in that battle with Microsoft in a very strong position.