The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2024–2025
Philips i9000 Prestige Ultra — AI-guided shaver ecosystem — Red Dot Best of the Best 2025
Philips' premium shaver ecosystem adds AI pressure sensing and a light-ring coach — and wins Red Dot's Best of the Best 2025.
Philips
What it had to solve
Philips wanted a premium, personalized shaving experience that feels effortless and intuitive, 'like a natural extension of the user' — in a market where rivals compete on blade counts and specifications. The answer had to cover wet and dry shaving, trimming, cleaning and travel in one coherent system.
How it works
At the 2025 Red Dot Awards, Philips took 52 prizes, and the top honour — Best of the Best — went to the i9000 Prestige Ultra Series, a premium grooming ecosystem rather than a single razor. The series covers wet and dry shaving, trimming, cleaning and travel, unified by a softer, more emotional design language that Philips deliberately made less masculine than earlier models.
The engineering idea is a shaver that guides the user. Five shaving modes appear on a colour display, while AI-driven pressure and motion sensors watch how you shave and answer through a light ring in real time, showing the ideal pressure and movement. A minimalist charging stand and a cleaning station that refreshes the head in a minute complete the setup.
The standout piece is the UV Power Charger: a hard-case travel pouch that doubles as a charging stand, a battery extender and a UV sanitizer that kills bacteria on the head to prevent skin irritation. Bio-based and recycled materials, plus a seven-year warranty, tie the premium story to durability. The jury called it an extremely mature product and credited the many generations of development behind it.
Why it lands
- Philips framed grooming as an experience, not a routine, then designed the whole ecosystem — shave, trim, clean, travel — around one user flow.
- Real-time AI pressure and motion feedback turns a razor into a coach, differentiating on feel rather than blade specifications.
- The UV Power Charger solves three everyday frictions — carrying, charging, sanitizing — in one object, making premium feel rational.
- Making the design language warmer and less masculine widened the product's emotional appeal without changing the engineering.
- A seven-year warranty and recycled materials make durability part of the premium argument, not an afterthought.
What it did
Red Dot Best of the Best 2025 — the jury praised an 'extremely mature product' and credited the many generations of iteration behind it — as one of 52 Red Dot awards Philips collected that year.
What you can take
In a mature category won on feel, coach the user through the product itself: real-time sensor feedback makes a ritual feel effortless, and it takes generations of iteration to get right.
Since then
After the Best of the Best win, Philips positioned the i9000 Prestige Ultra Series as the flagship of its grooming line and used the award across product pages and marketing. The 2025 haul — 52 Red Dot awards across the portfolio — became a company-wide proof point for its 'meaningful innovation' design strategy under Head of Design Peter Skillman.
Sources
- Philips wins 52 Red Dot Awards, including 'Best of the Best' for i9000 Prestige Ultra Series
- Red Dot Design Award: Philips i9000 Prestige Ultra Series
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