headfirst Echo Pro (2025): squeeze-to-fit helmet with brake light — iF Gold 2026

headfirst, a Dutch startup co-founded by designer Daan Zoetmulder, started from an awkward observation: people ride with helmets that wobble on their heads, or skip them entirely, and roughly half of cyclists wear ill-fitting helmets that compromise the protection they are meant to offer. Its brief to Amsterdam design studio APE was to build a helmet that adapts to the individual head shape instead of asking riders to adapt to it.

The answer was SafeFit, born of two years of prototyping: instead of the usual rear dial and foam pads, the rider presses the helmet on and squeezes, sliding toothed straps into a locking housing that holds the sides against the skull; two buttons release it. The shell pairs with multi-impact EPP foam under an ABS layer instead of single-impact EPS, and an accelerometer tail light brightens automatically when the cyclist brakes, good for about 6.5 hours per charge. Weights are 470 g (small) and 500 g (large), with EN 1078 and CPSC standards claimed.

The idea won the field's top recognition in 2026: the iF jury gave the Echo Pro Gold, one of only two bike-related Gold awards among 3,440 iF Design Award 2026 winners. The jury statement praised an 'intelligently designed fit system' that 'combines sizing and micro-adjustment in one intuitive mechanism and finally solves a long-standing problem in this category,' with an integrated brake light that raises safety 'without disturbing the silhouette.' The helmet had already succeeded on Kickstarter in 2025, with pledges starting around $103.