The Hoffmann Group's GARANT brand has once again scooped up a prize at the renowned yearly iF DESIGN AWARD: the winning product in the Product Design category was the electronic GARANT HCT torque wrench/rotational angle wrench with dial gauge. This Bluetooth-enabled tool belongs to the "Hoffmann Group Connected Tools (HCT)" open platform for mobile quality management and can send measurement values wirelessly to a PC or to the exclusively developed HCT smartphone app at just the press of a button. A staggering 9,509 entries from 52 nations were submitted for the coveted international iF DESIGN AWARD this year.

The electronic GARANT HCT torque wrench/rotational angle wrench won over the jury, made up of 98 international design experts, with its attractive, functional design: the tool's high-contrast 2.8-inch TFT colour display boasts a stable viewing angle and can display measurements not just as figures, but also on a dial gauge, thus allowing the user to keep an eye on the measurement value at all times. To ensure the user doesn't exceed the maximum torque setting, the tool will emit a visual signal that warns the user before this limit is reached. The tool can also be configured to give out an acoustic warning signal and to vibrate.

At the heart of the "Hoffmann Group Connected Tools (HCT)" platform is the HCT smartphone app. It can be connected to any HCT-enabled tool like the electronic GARANT HCT torque wrench/rotational angle wrench, so that measurement data can be recorded, saved and managed wirelessly via Bluetooth. If users wish to further process the data on a PC, they can simply export the measurement values in CSV format, along with the tool serial number, measurement date, unit, and all the relevant settings. The electronic GARANT HCT torque wrench/rotational angle wrench can also be configured to send measurement values directly to a PC application such as Excel or Word, without the need for additional software. Logging measurement data couldn't possibly get any easier.

The iF DESIGN AWARD is one of the most important design prizes in the world. Established in 1954, it is awarded every year by the iF International Forum Design GmbH, the world's oldest independent design institution. This year was the first time that the competition was held as a purely digital event, and was split into two parts: the online pre-selection, in which the design experts short-listed a number of entries, and the final voting stage, which only half of the entries made it through to.