Twice

For consumers around the world, the Internet of Things (IoT) opens the door to a new and convenient connected lifestyle. The wide range of networked products and services that make up the IoT encompasses consumer-focused devices and services within the smart home, connected entertainment, connected health and fitness, and connected car markets. The IoT enables the connected consumer lifestyle.

Market trends within each of these verticals will continue to drive growth in the ...read more

Smart-home products that don’t share home-automation standards can still be connected if tied together through a Cloud service such as that provided by IFTTT.com.

IFTTT “is a path to interoperability,” said Parks Associates analyst Tom Kerber. “Consumers who buy individual products can get them to work together without a hub, he explained.

WeMo’s upgraded app incorporates IFTTT functionality, which enables connections to Philips Hue lights and Nest products through the C ...read more

Almost 40 percent of all U.S broadband households with a Wi-Fi network have experienced or currently experience Wi-Fi problems, and a majority of them would be willing to use existing coaxial cables or power lines to carry network traffic and improve network performance, a Parks Associates survey contends.

The survey was commissioned by the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA), which promotes technology that sends network traffic over a home’s coaxial cables.

Among house ...read more

2015 will be a year of intense experimentation in new value propositions for advanced technologies and services. Multiple sectors within the connected home are facing new competition and an increased emphasis on differentiation strategies and expanded offerings. Each area presents its own unique challenges and value propositions.

Ultimately, the dominant leaders in these categories will be the companies that leverage consumer demand and expectations to provide a personalized ...read more

The newcomers enter a market whose U.S. unit sales will grow in 2015 by 20 percent to 24.9 million units and grow at 20 percent rates in 2016 and 2017, a Parks Associates/Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) report shows. The units include smart thermostats, networked cameras, smart door locks, water-leak detectors, smart smoke and CO detectors, smart light bulbs and switches, smart plugs and outlets, smart power strips, and the like.

Despite the gains, only 10 percent of ...read more

Health and fitness are application areas with significant potential for long-term consumer engagement and ongoing streams of data and revenues. About 45 percent of consumers in U.S. broadband households are very concerned about their health. The breakdown of this figure shows that one in three is concerned about diet habits, whereas about 40 percent are worried about their lack of exercise.

It is a cliché, but unfortunately a true one, that a wide chasm sits between healthca ...read more

Tom Kerber, Parks Associates research director, concluded that big-box retailers have taken note of the market’s trajectory. “I think that all of the big-box retailers that are not currently offering products are considering adding a smart-home section to stores prior to the Christmas season.”

The smart home, he said, “represents a new product category with huge growth potential.” Retailers, he said, “will certainly make smart home part of their holiday promotional material. ...read more

For its part, Parks Associates see strong demand for a broad array of products, lumped under the term smart-energy products. The products include smart thermostats, smart lighting, smart outlets/plugs, smart power strips and smart kitchen appliances.

Households headed by 25- to 34-year-olds and those with children have a higher propensity for owning smart-energy products, Parks said. More than 10 percent of U.S. broadband households headed by a consumer ages 25 to 34 own at ...read more