Blog articles from 07/2021

Connectivity of a smart home provides consumers and energy service providers the tools to manage energy consumption throughout the home. As the adoption of solar, storage, and electric vehicles continues to rise, utilities have the opportunity to align operation of smart home devices to the needs of the grid. Don’t miss Parks Associates ’ Smart Energy Summit: Engaging the Consumer conference as it continues its virtual series next week with the upcoming session Next Stages...

With the exception of the high-end, luxury home market, consumers are still working to “build” their smart homes — by buying single devices and connecting them to create an experience that provides value around the core propositions of safety and security. Even within the security market, we see consumers building on top of their existing services to add in new smart home devices that provide new value through the experience that products like a smart door lock or doorbell can...

            ISC West concluded this week featuring exciting, new product announcements in the security space. Leading brands such as Allegion, Clare Controls, Snap One, Alarm.com, and NAPCO unveiled upcoming additions to their various IoT-based solutions offerings. In a positive sign that trade show activity in the tech space is starting to show signs of life, ISC West reported that 10,000 people attended the show in...

Earlier in the year, the original iPhone celebrated its 14 th anniversary.  Steve Jobs, Apple’s then CEO, took the stage at Macworld and amazed the globe with a product that literally changed how we communicate, work, and enjoy video and music content.  One could also argue that the iPhone (and the smartphone category in general) ultimately enabled social media apps to ascend to the level of popularity they currently enjoy.  In short, it’s evolved into a device that...

Amidst this disruptive year, the smart home market continued its steady growth, with 34% of consumers owning a core smart home device and 41% owning a remotely monitored connected home device. Not only are new households getting in on the smart home trend, but current device owners are adding to their collection. Parks Associates research shows that 17% of US broadband households are now what we call smart home Power Users, meaning they own at least five smart home devices — and this...

The overall use of ad-based OTT video continues to dramatically rise, with no single service leader. More than 30 million (or 31%) of US broadband households use free ad-based OTT services, which is a six-point increase from Q1 of 2020. Without a leading service, providers with unique offerings have the ability to climb to the top in the OTT space. Don’t miss Parks Associates’ Future of Video: OTT, Pay TV, and Digital Media as it continues its virtual series next week with...

Over the last year, Samsung has slowly but steadily moved toward an app-only approach to its SmartThings platform. With 6% of broadband households using SmartThings as their solution to control their smart home devices, according to Parks Associates research in Q4 2020, these changes impact millions of consumers. Recently, Samsung passed a major milestone in this transition from hardware with the sunsetting of its Gen.1 Hubs last week (June 30th). SmartThings ecosystem users who...

NBCUniversal’s Peacock had a disappointing launch in summer 2020 due to unavailability on key platforms and a lack of appealing exclusive content to drive initial engagement. After finally adding Roku and Amazon Fire, Peacock has gradually risen in the OTT market through the addition of appealing content, including WWE’s library, the day-and-date streaming release of Boss Baby: Family Business , and the upcoming coverage of the Olympic Games that was initially intended as a...