Blog articles from 07/2019

Smart home device ownership tripled between 2014 and 2018, and households utilizing smart home technology now own an average of six devices. As the number of connected devices in the household increases, so does the consumer’s risk of exposure to a data privacy breach. That risk is amplified by devices like smart speakers with voice assistants (Amazon Echo, Google Home, etc.), which collect massive troves of data, while device manufacturers potentially harness that data without...

Prior to Parks Associates’ sixth-annual  Connected Health Summit: Independent Living and Wellness ,  John Jesser , President of LiveHealth Online and Employer Solutions at American Well, shared his thoughts on the connected health market with the firm's analyst team. John will participate on the  Choice in Care: Telehealth, Kiosks, and  Retail Clinics  panel on Wednesday, August 28, at 10:45 AM. Panelists who will join him on this session...

I recently attended the AT&T SHAPE conference held at the Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank, CA. In its third year, AT&T promotes the event as the convergence of technology and entertainment. Attended by 20,000 people, the two-day event featured a series of presentations and panel discussions ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) to esports and the need for greater women’s inclusion in the entertainment industry. Speakers and panelists included such...

Every year, Amazon hosts Prime Day, a one-day event of deals exclusive to Amazon Prime members. Heavy promotion of its own products, electronics in particular, are a common theme on Prime Day. This year, Amazon offered its Prime members a promotion that gave them a $10 coupon in exchange for tracking their data. The offer requires members to install Amazon Assistant, a browser tool that allows consumers to discover Amazon products and compare prices across other retailers on the web. This...

Chris O'Dell, Research Associate, Parks Associates, will moderate the session  Creating Awesome, Trusted Voice Experiences for Consumers  at  VOICE Summit 2019  on Wednesday, July 24 at 4:00 p.m in Newark, NJ  at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). Voice has made a sizeable impact in the smart home and connected CE spaces with the success of smart speakers and personal assistants. The challenges are now to extend these capabilities to other...

The smart home starts at the front door, with devices like smart door locks, networked cameras, smart garage door openers, and video doorbells representing not only a foundation for security solutions but also access points for a future world of services, including in-home and in-garage delivery, home rental solutions, pet and cleaning services, and much more. Parks Associates research shows video doorbells lead in adoption among the three primary access control devices. At the...

As adoption of smart home devices continues to grow, the smart home needs an interface to connect all the moving pieces in the home. For devices that are connected to cloud APIs, voice control has been transformational. While the UI experience is compelling, the true value of voice assistants is in their ability to unify control of fragmented and even disparate ecosystems. Consumers with smart home devices that are not part of a larger home control system (which is the majority of smart...