The Energy Collective

That’s one takeaway from this week’s Connections conference in Burlingame, Calif., which brought together some of the biggest names in the smart home industry. Attendees included Comcast, which earlier this month revealed that it has surpassed the 500,000-subscriber mark for its Xfinity Home platform, and home security giant ADT, which claimed 1.2 million users of its ADT Pulse home automation service -- nearly one-fifth of its total customer base -- in its second-quarter earnin ...read more

Smart energy services in the home are already wrapped up with home security settings. Intelligent light bulbs and smart thermostats are standard offerings as part of smart home packages, which are led by security.

But people are ready for more, much more, according to new research from Parks Associates released at its Smart Energy Summit in Austin this week. Nearly half of homes with broadband in the U.S. would be willing to subscribe to a bundle of energy services for about ...read more

The rush to get connected devices to market, and into ecosystems that matter, is just heating up in 2015. CES is the kickoff point, but the space will only grow more convoluted and busier throughout the year. Parks Associates estimates that the sale of smart home devices will nearly double over the next few years, increasing from 20 million at the end of last year to 36 million units by 2017.

By the time next year's CES rolls around, we will likely see more energy-specific p ...read more

Two-thirds of U.S. consumers with broadband are not very familiar with smart home services or products or where to buy them, according to a new survey.

That will likely change quickly in coming years, according to the white paper from Consumer Electronics Association and Parks Associates. But for now, it’s not just an open market, but also a nebulous one.

Consumers tossed around names such as ADT, AT&T, Apple and Nest when asked to identify smart home manufacturers, but ...read more