Blog articles from 05/2019

At the end of 2018, the average U.S. broadband household owned 10.5 connected devices, including computing, mobile, smart home, and connected health devices, as well as smart speakers with voice assistants. Technologies like voice control, data analytics, machine learning, blockchain, sound recognition, and artificial intelligence play a substantial role in simplifying, streamlining, and automating the smart home, radically enhancing the value proposition by providing context, awareness,...

The United States population is greying, with more baby boomers entering retirement age every day. The number of Americans age 65 and older is expected to reach over 80 million by 2050. At present, the U.S. healthcare system is ill-equipped to handle the growing number of elderly individuals, many of whom will have specific health needs and may lack sufficient retirement funds. Companies across many different industries are developing solutions to help seniors live comfortably in...

Parks Associates finds that 45% of likely homebuyers would choose a home with smart products over one without, where all other considerations are relatively the same. Consumer interest in smart home products and services is driving innovation among leading home builders who are crafting diverse strategies for leveraging smart home tech to enhance their brand, differentiate their product lines, and drive revenue. Device makers and service providers looking to partner with homebuilders need...

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 U.S. households that have professionally monitored security. DIY and smart home products are adding volatility to the market for professionally monitored security and driving changes in the home security business. These solutions do have advantages with lower-cost, contract-free...

Standalone products, also called point solutions, are self-sufficient products that generally operate independently from other products and systems. Smart home systems consist of a groups of devices that work together to enable a variety of use cases and applications. Both standalone devices and systems have market drawbacks that influence market adoption. For standalone devices, consumer benefits include the fact that they are often simple to use and the vale proposition is usually...

The smart home industry is keen on driving market growth. Positive setup experiences are critical to that goal while poor setup experiences drive product returns, negative social network commentary, and an unwillingness to purchase other devices of the same brand. Even the perception that a product is difficult to set up serves as a barrier to device adoption. Among consumers who do not intend to purchase smart home devices, 13% will not purchase a device because they are confused about...

One critical question explored by IoT providers is “To what degree are consumer fears about data security inhibiting adoption of smart home products and services?” While consumer concerns are sometimes overridden by an even stronger penchant for technology or convenience, the level of a consumer’s security concern has a strong logical connection to purchasing behavior. Turning to consumer views, Parks Associates data indicates that 44% of U.S. broadband households are “very...

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...