"smart home" articles

Home builders are traditionally risk averse when it comes to adding new technologies in their homes. However, home builders can be an effective channel to introduce smart home products and services to a broad range of customers, including those that are not traditionally tech enthusiasts. Builders across the country convened in Irving last week for Builder Connections, hosted by Hanley Wood, to hear insights on consumer demand for smart home products and services and trends impacting...

The recent rise of insurtechs has spurred modernization in the fundamentals of insurance, including policy creation, underwriting, and claims management. Insurtechs, such as Hippo and Lemonade, have implemented AI and data analytics to provide quick and accurate quotes to their customers while also decreasing their own operating costs. Such innovation has disrupted the traditional insurance industry and has helped alter underlying business models of legacy companies, forcing them to...

One of our mantras at Parks Associates is that many smart home device manufacturers need to strengthen their value propositions in order to win-over the mass market consumer and justify the higher price of connected products. In short, offer consumers more for more, more for less, or at least more for the same cost as competitors. The Yardian (a portmanteau, or mash-up, of “yard” and “guardian”) by Aeon Matrix is a smart irrigation controller that beefs up its...

This week it was revealed that Apple uses contractors to review Siri recordings, which exposes the recordings of Apple customers’ personal lives including recordings of doctor visits and other personal situations. In April, an investigation by Bloomberg highlighted that one way in which Amazon improves the Alexa solution is to have humans review customers’ requests. In July, a study from a Belgian public broadcaster revealed that recordings from Google Assistant were being transcribed...

Smart home device ownership tripled between 2014 and 2018, and households utilizing smart home technology now own an average of six devices. As the number of connected devices in the household increases, so does the consumer’s risk of exposure to a data privacy breach. That risk is amplified by devices like smart speakers with voice assistants (Amazon Echo, Google Home, etc.), which collect massive troves of data, while device manufacturers potentially harness that data without...

The smart home starts at the front door, with devices like smart door locks, networked cameras, smart garage door openers, and video doorbells representing not only a foundation for security solutions but also access points for a future world of services, including in-home and in-garage delivery, home rental solutions, pet and cleaning services, and much more. Parks Associates research shows video doorbells lead in adoption among the three primary access control devices. At the...

According to Parks Associates research, 28% of US broadband households now own at least one smart home device, and device-owning households own an average of six devices in their home. A newly published Parks Associates report, Race to Control the Smart Home Ecosystem: Attracting Partners , states that as device adoption continues to increase each year, smart home platforms will help establish order out of the chaos that comes from the steady influx of connected devices in...

Subscription-based business models cross a number of different industries with companies offering a product or service for a recurring fee. While these models offer a strong value proposition in hopes of an improved customer experience, the plethora of subscription-based offerings in the market offer the potential for subscription fatigue. However, Parks Associates research suggests consumers are not only willing to pay for a subscription—they are willing to pay for multiple services,...