"smart home" articles

During the opening day of the 2019 Google I/O event, Google’s annual developer conference, the tech giant announced that its ”Home” product line is being rebranded under its new Google Nest banner alongside its Nest product line. The Home products include smart speakers, streaming media devices, and Wifi routers. This announcement begs the question: has Google finally found a home for Nest? As the uneven relationship between Google and Nest illustrates, the answer is anything but...

Currently, 25% of U.S. broadband households that do not own a smart home device and do not plan to purchase one will not purchase these products due to security and privacy concerns. Addressing consumer privacy and security concerns is a key issue for the industry and Parks Associates At the 23rd-annual CONNECTIONS: The Premier Connected Home Conference, Parks Associates and key industry leaders will explore new opportunities for service providers as well as current attitudes on data...

On April 23, people across the globe acknowledged World Book Day by sharing photos and sentiments about their favorite books across various social media platforms. Perhaps what they should have done is share screenshots from their favorite audiobook or e-reader apps—the increasingly popular ways people consume what was traditionally print media. The prevalence of audiobooks in particular continues to rise—the Audio Publishers Association (APA) reported double digit growth in...

Self-installed security solutions have the potential to significantly lower the cost of security, create new monitoring use cases, and, in doing so, expand the market beyond the traditional 20-25% of US households that have professionally monitored security. Parks Associates estimates, conservatively, that DIY security systems and no-contract, hybrid monitoring solutions enabled by DIY security will expand professional monitoring services to an additional 5% of US households....

Parks Associates research shows the average US broadband household owns 10.5 connected devices (including computing, mobile, smart home, and connected health devices), as well as smart speakers with voice assistants. Sixty percent of smart home device purchase intenders find it very important for their future smart home devices to work with the smart products they already own. Smart home platforms help establish order out of the chaos that comes from the steady influx of connected...

Over the past few weeks, Nest customers experienced a series of hacks including a highly publicized news story where a stranger started talking to a five-year-old boy through the Nest security camera that was mounted on the wall in his bedroom. Google insists that these problems are not the result of problems with their own security protocols or a compromise to their system, but the result of consumers using unsecure login credentials to manage their Nest account, including recycled...

Prior to Parks Associates’ 10th-annual Smart Energy Summit , in Austin, Bob King, Vice President, Policy, Smart Energy Water, shared insights on how energy providers can generate revenue in the smart home. Bob will be participating on the Optimizing Control with Energy Data session on Wednesday, February 20, at 3:30 PM. Panelists joining him on this session include: Gary High, SVP Marketing and Product Management, Landis + Gyr Michael Phillips, Co-founder and CEO,...

Prior to Parks Associates’ 10th annual Smart Energy Summit , in Austin, Advisory Board member and conference speaker, Joel Miller, Principle Supervisor, DTE Energy shared insights on how energy providers can do more to move the market forward. Joel will be participating on the Incentivizing the Smart Home: Utility Marketplace session on Wednesday, February 20, at 8:45 AM. Panelists joining him on this session include: Brian McKee, Director of Online Store, AM...