Anker wins the biggest award with hearing technology

The 2026 ceremony took place in Berlin on September 4, marking the first time the Innovation Awards have been presented live during IFA itself.

More than 530 submissions entered the second edition of the competition.

Best of IFA went to Anker RIC Hearing Aids Pro, an over-the-counter receiver-in-canal hearing system aimed at adults with mild to moderate hearing loss.

Anker's Thus AI chip performs neural-network processing for speech separation, working with a four-microphone beamforming system. The company rates the chip at 7.2 billion operations per second.

Each device weighs 6.61g and carries an IP68 rating. Bluetooth 5.4 supports dual-device connectivity.

Anker quotes more than 12 hours of operation from the hearing aids and up to 36 hours with the charging case. Five minutes on the charger is claimed to provide roughly two additional hours.

Its headline speech-clarity improvement of 30.2 percent is based on Anker's own HASPI testing against another Anker SoC. It should be read as a manufacturer result, not an independent IFA measurement.

That choice is more unusual than the specification sheet suggests

IFA could have handed its overall trophy to an enormous display, a workstation or one of the many robots roaming Berlin.

Instead, an assistive device took the top spot.

That puts practical value and accessibility unusually high in a competition surrounded by products built to make an immediate visual impression.

Insta360 Luna Ultra takes Best of Tech

The most forward-looking technological achievement award went to Insta360's Luna Ultra gimbal camera.

Its primary Leica-developed camera uses a 1-inch sensor and records 8K video at up to 30fps. A second 1/1.3-inch telephoto camera extends the shooting range, with Insta360 advertising up to 12x zoom and a 6x lossless mode.

The camera also reaches 4K120 and 1080p240, while the body weighs roughly 233g or 235g depending on finish.

The two-inch OLED is removable and can operate as a remote viewing screen. For solo recording, that may prove more useful day to day than the 8K badge.

Luna Ultra was already a shipping product before IFA, having launched on June 10.

LG wins for the breadth of its portfolio

Best Brand is judged differently from the two product awards. LG Electronics received it for overall performance across innovation, impact and design.

LG also collected individual category wins, including recognition for its Wallpaper TV and Sound Suite AI.

The 2026 Wallpaper TV combines an extremely thin OLED evo panel with a wireless video architecture designed to reduce the hardware visible around the screen.

Sound Suite AI uses Dolby Atmos FlexConnect to adapt a multi-speaker arrangement to the actual room and listening position.

There are another 13 award categories

IFA also recognized products across Audio, Beauty Technology & Wellbeing, Design, Communication & Connectivity, Computers & Gaming, Content Creation, Household Appliances, Home Entertainment, IFA Next & Future Technologies, Mobility, Smart Home, Sustainability and Technology for Social Value.

Award-winning products are being displayed in the Innovation Awards Zone in Hall 25 for the duration of the show.

The awards are not product reviews

IFA's own methodology places an important limit on what the trophies mean.

An independent international panel of journalists and industry experts reviews entries using criteria including innovation, functionality, design and potential market value.

The judging is based on submitted materials. IFA explicitly states that IFA Management and the Gadgety Awards do not test or endorse the winning products.

A trophy therefore cannot tell buyers whether battery life survives independent testing, how hearing performance varies between users or how a camera behaves after months in the field.

The smallest winner may say the most about IFA 2026

Luna Ultra looks like a conventional technology-award winner: dual cameras, 8K video, a gimbal and a detachable display.

Anker's hearing aids are much less theatrical.

That may be precisely why the overall result stands out. Among more than 530 submissions at Europe's biggest consumer-tech show, the top prize went to a device designed to make conversation easier and then stay out of the way.