Blog articles from 04/2019

International research firm Parks Associates announced that its 23rd-annual CONNECTIONS conference will feature the Connected Car Corner, by InstallerNet, to highlight the role of smart automotive and mobile solutions in the smart home ecosystem. New research from the firm reveals 4% of U.S. broadband households have an in-car voice assistant device, such as the Amazon Echo Auto, Roav Viva, or Muse Auto, and 9% plan to buy one in the next 12 months. Parks Associates estimates the...

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...

We’ve all heard the expression before—smartphones have peaked. And it's true; Parks Associates consumer surveys find that smartphone adoption in the US reached its highest point in 2017, and has slowly declined ever since. Going hand in hand with smartphone decline is a second, more counterintuitive trend. Consumers are going back to basics—basic phones, that is. Between 2017 and 2019, the percentage of broadband households with mobile phone service but no smartphones rose...

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....

As technology moves forward, energy efficiency and “green” solutions—particularly in the residential space—continue to gain prominence. As of Q4 2018, about 25% of US broadband households own at least one smart home device, with smart thermostats leading the way and smart lighting solutions close behind. Still, overall adoption rates for individual energy management device categories remain at 10%, and product manufacturers struggle to push their products beyond high-income...

At the investor day presentation on April 11, Disney announced a number of details of its new streaming service, Disney+, slated for release in November of this year.  This play by Disney is to enter the rarified air occupied by the “big three” OTT services – Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu. Ninety-one percent of US broadband households who subscribe to at least one OTT service subscribe to at least one of the big three services, representing 64% of all...

I recently returned from the Streaming Summit at this year’s NAB Show in Las Vegas. The Streaming Summit is in its second year and is solely focused on the current and future state of the streaming and OTT video space. Speakers from market leaders such as Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Google, Comcast, and CBS Interactive among others, discussed topics ranging from improving the customer experience to implementing varying service business models to building an OTT platform to streaming live...

Consumers of connected entertainment products and services are enjoying an unmatched period of choice. The number of connected devices per household has almost doubled in the last decade, providing consumers with viewing options from large screen smart TVs to handheld devices such as smartphones. OTT service providers continue to disrupt the pay-TV market with over 200 services offered , a 37% increase since 2016. Each new connected device and service increases consumers’...