HL D&I Halla wins top honor at IDEA 2026 for AI-powered low-noise range hood

HL D&I Halla's AI-based low-noise range hood has won a top honor at IDEA 2026, one of the world's three most prestigious design awards.

The company announced Monday that the product received a Finalist award at the International Design Excellence Awards 2026, organized by the Industrial Designers Society of America.

IDEA ranks alongside Germany's iF Design Award and Red Dot Design Award as one of the world's three premier design competitions. Winners are selected through a comprehensive evaluation covering product design, innovation, user experience, and social and environmental impact.

The award-winning range hood was developed around the concept of "living ventilation." It uses real-time air-pollution sensors to detect deteriorating indoor air quality and activates automatically in response.

The product features a dual-fan structure that simultaneously boosts suction power and reduces noise. It is also designed to capture and expel cooking vapors and grease particles, limiting contamination inside the hood.

HL D&I Halla secured a patent for the low-noise range hood technology in 2024 and has since offered it as an optional upgrade at pre-sale residential sites. The award-winning version adds AI-based air quality management and a detachable front panel to the existing low-noise platform.

"The AI low-noise range hood is a next-generation residential solution that brings together air quality management, quiet operation and design in a single product," a company official said. "We will continue to strengthen the residential product competitiveness of our Efete brand by building on differentiated technology and design capabilities that can meaningfully improve customers' everyday lives."

Meanwhile, HL D&I Halla has been posting a string of wins in the public infrastructure sector. In March, the company secured a contract worth 52.8 billion won ($38.2 million) to extend a breakwater at Saemangeum New Port, and in July it signed a 155 billion won deal with Korea Expressway Corporation for the first section of a highway construction project between Jecheon and Yeongwol.