Blog articles from 08/2022

A smart door lock belongs to the family of smart home access devices and is a wirelessly connected electromechanical lock—or retrofit mechanical control for a deadbolt—that can be remotely monitored, locked, and unlocked by communicating using a smartphone, tablet, computer, or smart speaker. It may communicate either directly, via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, or through a gateway or voice assistant. These devices provide keyless entry/exit serving as a replacement for traditional keyed locks...

In November 2021, Netflix launched Netflix Gaming with five titles out of the gate. It has since grown its library of games to the current offering of over two dozen titles, with ambitions to offer 50 titles by the end of 2022. Netflix currently has about 221 million subscribers globally, but according to data from the app tracking software Apptopia, only 1.7 million of those users are accessing Netflix’s library of games per day – less than 1 percent of the streaming giant’s...

Both seniors and caregivers are reactive purchasers of senior assistive technology, including PERS devices. The search for a solution typically begins only after an emergency occurs or when a senior is suddenly living alone after the death of a spouse. Fear-based marketing often plays into these scenarios, portraying a helpless senior unable to contact a loved one after falling. Though the original “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” commercial aired 30 years ago, the phrase remains...

Parks Associates’ Connected Health Summit: Consumer Engagement and Innovation conference series is excited to announce Becklar as a 2022 Sponsor. Becklar LLC is the holding company for AvantGuard Monitoring Centers and Freeus. Freeus is a leader in North America when it comes to the development and manufacturing of PERS and mPERS devices and technology. AvantGuard Monitoring Centers is one of the industry leaders in wholesale monitoring and provides services to the fire,...

Smart home products may use a centralized control architecture, a distributed control architecture, or enable both. Consequently, consumers may be able to control their smart products individually, or as a group through a central control point (hub, app, voice assistant, etc.), or have options for either. In a distributed control architecture, individual products perform specific jobs for consumers, but those products also benefit from collaboration with other products. A loose...

vMVPDs represent a small but growing percentage of the total pay TV market, and over time will become a significant method by which “pay TV” is sold and consumed. Online pay TV overall, including vMVPDs, is poised to overtake traditional pay TV over the long term.   COVID-19 has merely accelerated the pace of trends that were already taking place across the TV landscape prior to the pandemic, and re-acquainted many with TV services, albeit via a different medium –...

Parks Associates' study  "Context is King: Smart Home Video and Audio Analytics" examines how video and audio analytics are evolving and impacting the smart home user experience and profiles companies that are driving the technology forward. Innovation in video and audio analytics drives new applications and services like facial, emotional, gender, and object recognition, creating dramatic new capabilities to understand the context and deliver value. Embedding microphones...

More device offerings and connected ecosystems are present in the market now compared to a decade ago. However, the ability of devices to work in tandem with other devices (even in different ecosystems) has also increased. Initiatives like matter (although not yet fully implemented) that are aimed at bridging remaining gaps in interoperability and device compatibility are being committed to by tech giants and smaller developers alike and will help simplify consumers’ experience as...