Electronic House

According to Parks Associates, more the 12 million households will have a smart water leak detector, more than 40 million will have a smart thermostat, nearly 50 million will have a smart light bulb, and nearly 14 million will have a smart home controller. Chances are, most of these devices will connect, communicate, and be controlled via a Wi-Fi network. With each new device that gets added to this network, the Wi-Fi network becomes increasingly strapped for bandwidth.

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Google Assistant, along with other voice-control platforms like Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri, is gaining steam as a smart home control solution. According to a study by Parks Associates, consumer adoption of voice assistants more than doubled from 2015 and 2016. Based on this growing popularity, manufacturers have been developing and introducing voice-controllable smart home products at a dizzying rate.

From the article "3 New Smart Home Devices Controlled by Google Assistant ...read more

A fast, reliable broadband connection is crucial to the well-being of a smart home. Homeowners recognize the value of speed—so much so that they’re willing to pay more for it. According to Dallas-based research firm Parks Associates, 9 percent of U.S. broadband households switched providers in the past 12 months, with 35 percent of them doing so to get a faster broadband speed. Only 18 percent of switchers.

From the article "EH Quick Bits" by EH Staff.

Is this the year of the smart home? If so, it looks like security and home control are two of the driving forces.

According to a new research report by Parks Associates, about 64 percent of the smart devices currently in the home are part of security or home control systems.

The report, Evolution of Smart Home and the Internet of Things, includes data from a Q1 2014 survey, which featured 10,000 U.S. broadband households.

The smart devices mentioned in the study incl ...read more

Do you have a home project like a home theater or multiroom audio system installation in mind? A new study by CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association) and prepared by research firm Parks Associates shows the hot trends in custom installation, as well as some emerging technologies you may want to consider for your home.

From the article, "What’s Hot in Custom Electronics?" by Steven Castle.

According to Parks Associates, a new crop of connected devices is coming this year. The research firm predicts 920 million connected devices to be sold in just 2012, which will include HDTVs, smartphones and tablets. When you factor in cloud-based services, the category should surpass $8.5 billion by 2015.

Besides those web-enabled devices, Parks says to expect more multifunction e-readers, Android involvement, and even more voice-controlled devices. The company also says th ...read more

Tricia Parks of research firm Parks Associates: CEBus (Consumer Electronics Bus) – [People in the industry]talked about this [networking standard] for a really long time. There were so many smart people doing so much hard, good work, but the nature of the market wouldn’t let it happen.

From the article, "Biggest Tech Flops of All Time" by Lisa Mongomery

Will 2011 be the year home energy management finally takes off? It could well be. There are many positive signs, such as the very large fact that people want energy efficiency in their homes. There are still some factors that need to come together, such as the crucial marriage between energy monitoring and home control systems, but this should happen soon. Smart grid services and smart appliances will lag behind, for now. And as research firm Parks Associates recently forecast, ...read more