Residential Systems

Parks Associates announced new home energy management data from The Evolution of Home Energy Management showing 70% of U.S. households with smart energy devices report saving money due to reduced energy consumption. However, the report also notes the difficulty of selling smart energy devices based on cost savings, as 83% of U.S. broadband households do not know the price they are paying for electricity.

“Residential customers today see energy as a necessary expense, and whi ...read more

Parks Associates has released new research showing nearly 4% of U.S. households will have a smart home controller by the end of 2014, with an estimated increase to nearly 6% by 2015. The firm's Evolution of Smart Home and the Internet of Things, which includes data from a 1Q 2014 survey of 10,000 U.S. broadband households, also reports 64% of all smart devices currently in households operate as part of a security or home controls system. Smart devices include motorized door cont ...read more

U.S. households with time-of-use (TOU) electricity billing are more satisfied with their electricity service, according to new research by Parks Associates, revealed at the 2014 Smart Energy Summit.

Among energy consumers with free nights or weekends, 53 percent are “very” satisfied with their overall electricity services, but only 34 percent without this TOU service are very satisfied.

Smart Energy Summit, February 17-19 in Austin, features keynotes from Austin Energy, ...read more

Kurt Scherf, VP of research at Parks Associates in Dallas, Texas, noted that from a very broad technical vantage point, networking is a two-way communication between at least two devices.  From an application level, however, "it's primarily PC networking, but there are other devices that can be a part of data networks," he said.  "The other angle is multimedia networking, and that primarily focuses on devices that store data and stream content."

Scherf does not include some ho ...read more

On a similar note, it was refreshing to see an article in the New York Times last month extolling the virtues of the networked home and quoting several representatives of CEDIA.

.... This time, not only were CEDIA principals, Jeff Hoover and Ray Lepper, quoted in the Times article, but also cited were Parks Associates, Integrated Media Systems in Virginia and control technology manufacturer, Smart Systems.  Kudos to all these folks for leading by example.

From the editorial ...read more

Networked entertainment services and products could provide the impetus sought by service providers and consumer electronics manufacturers for the mass-market adoption of digital "connected home" solutions, according to Parks Associates' forthcoming report Digital Entertainment in the Internet Home. This immense market potential derives from the fundamental appeal of entertainment content and applications, combined with the enhanced functionality of networking technologies. Early ...read more

Nearly 83 percent of the 274 installing dealers surveyed in Parks Associates' Installing Dealer ePanel believe that sales volume in 2002 will improve significantly over 2001. This renewed optimism should be encouraging to manufacturers, who have weathered a difficult year and are wary of vague projections of an economic turnaround. [Read more in the Parks Associates press release "Installing Dealers Expecting Robust Growth for Residential Sales in 2002."]

From the article "Gro ...read more

The E-Home 2001 study conducted by Parks Associates has found that audio/video content will drive home networking growth, as a significant number of U.S. Internet households are interested in emerging home networking products/services related to home entertainment.

Consumers' inclinations for flexible entertainment solutions should provide a solid boost for the home networking market, specifically technologies that enable the storage and distribution of digital content, accord ...read more