Starkey® Hearing Technologies is pleased to announce that its revolutionary Halo™ 2 hearing aids have won a Silver 2017 Edison Award in "Hearing Technology." Inspired by Thomas Edison's persistence and inventiveness, the internationally renowned Edison Awards™ recognize innovation, creativity and ingenuity in the global community.

Halo 2 was honored for its ability to merge audiological advances with mobile technology to provide a hearable technology built for better hearing and active living. Featuring revolutionary quad-core twin compressor technology, a unique music algorithm and high-definition operating system, Halo 2 enables high-definition sounds and speech audibility across life's changing landscapes. Additionally, Halo 2 was also honored for its destigmatizing effect.

"We are pleased to see Halo 2 honored for both its advanced technology and for the positive social impact it's having on how people view hearing aids," Starkey Hearing Technologies Senior Manager of Audiology Research Jason Galster said. "Our collaboration with faculty at the University of Toronto revealed that integration of Halo 2 with mobile technology has a normalizing effect for patients, and we are hopeful that this technology will continue to help in eliminating the historic stigma hearing aids have normally had."

Halo 2 originally launched in March 2016, with a new, nearly invisible RIC 312 style released in January 2017 alongside the new version of the TruLink Hearing Control app. To date, Halo 2 has been recognized by six different organizations. Halo 2 was the 2017 SXSW Interactive Innovations Awards "Wearable Tech" winner; earned a Best Design Award and was named one of the "7 Most Brilliant Product Designs of 2016" by Inc. magazine; is a 2016 American Business Awards Technical Innovation of the Year; a Gold Product Design Award winner in the 2016 Spark Awards; and a finalist in both the 2016 MN Tekne Awards and the 2017 SXSW Interactive Innovation Awards.

Edison Award winners are judged by more than 3,000 senior business executives and academics from across the nation whose votes acknowledge the winners' success in meeting the award's stringent criteria of quality.