Parks Points

Consumer concerns about their health have increased year-over-year. One in four report being very concerned about a lack of quality sleep, compared with just 16% in 2016.

A consistent lack of quality sleep can contribute to a host of medical conditions, such as depression, obesity, dementia, and other chronic illnesses. Yet, Americans’ sleep quality and quantity continue to decline. Sleep tracking features of smart watches and fitness trackers—the most commonly adopted sleep tech ...read more

The mobile data market has been approaching saturation in major industrialized nations. Mobile data consumption has increased steadily over the past several years, but consumers have found new ways to avoid paying extra for services they don't need or use -- and intense competition among mobile carriers has allowed consumers to switch from fixed-data to unlimited plans and pay less in the process.

Operators increasingly have been turning to targeted data-driven services in order to drive ...read more

The need for business model innovation is often cited in the smart home industry as necessary to meet the challenge of generating enough revenue to offset the costs of supporting connected products. Industry players are experimenting with hardware-as-a-service (HaaS) models, where companies sell packages that include hardware, software, maintenance, and sometimes installation for a monthly fee.

By using a hardware-as-a-service model, customers can pay for services instead of products. An ...read more

Movie theaters have lived a long life, having bolstered the financial health of the film industry for years and entertained millions of viewers. Theaters provide a unique blend of public and private entertainment, allowing us to experience the spectacle of film in our own seat but in a community of viewers. However, despite its position as a venue for the art of film, this unique channel for content distribution is struggling as it seeks a resurgence rather than a slow death.

The ...read more

Smart home and consumer Internet of Things solutions promise significant opportunities for the insurance industry in terms of reducing costs, alleviating risks, deepening customer engagement, and creating new services and revenue streams. There are many barriers ahead to overcome, but given the tremendous upside, insurance companies have begun attacking these challenges with a multi-tiered strategy.

The currency of these opportunities is data, and the level of integration required to ...read more

2017 represented a boom year for the smart speaker category with household adoption reaching 15% in 4Q 2017. This is just the beginning of a period of rapid growth for the category, as Parks Associates estimates household penetration of smart speakers to reach 50-55% by 2021.

In the blossoming voice-first technology market, key consumer value propositions include ease of use for entertainment content discovery and consumption, as well as simplification of competing protocols in the smart ...read more

Virtual reality devices, including headsets and peripherals, offer consumers and businesses new ways to experience and share immersive content for entertainment, educational, social and other purposes.

VR's unique capability to promote user interaction through highly immersive content provides untapped potential in terms of storytelling, advertising, the practice of medicine, business, travel and much more. Virtual reality headsets are now available at increasingly attainable prices, and ...read more

A number of market developments and trends are impacting the residential security industry and many new solutions were debuted at CES. Traditional security providers are facing increased competition from point solutions such as the all-in-one camera.

While the emergence of smart home products extends the value of a security system, it also increases competition, as smart devices are often sold independently of a traditional security system. Many of these solutions are self-installable, ...read more

Parks Associates tracks and monitors developments in the residential security and smart home markets. Throughout 2018, our analyst team will be highlighting new developments among smart security offerings in the U.S. and analyzing their impact on security dealers and installers.

The DIY security segment in particular has seen several major product introductions from new entrants trying to ignite the self-installed market with innovative products, low price points and new support services ...read more