Blog articles from 11/2016

New Parks Associates research cited by The Washington Post today reveals the competitive landscape among top OTT video service providers. The IoT research firm recently released an updated Top 10 list of OTT video services, which showed the majority of OTT video consumption is now on Internet-connected TV. The list, which has Netflix maintaining the top spot ahead of Amazon Video, Hulu, MLB.TV, and WWE Network, is ranked by number of paid subscribers, excluding transactional or...

Companies often talk about their goals to provide a superior user experience, but what exactly do they mean when they say that? What all does the user experience entail? The user experience (UX) and the user interface (UI) of a product are sometimes referred to interchangeably by ecosystem players—yet the two terms have different meanings. A user interface is the means by which a user can interact with his or her device or service. Companies are transforming user interfaces...

Parks Associates research finds approximately 50% of U.S. broadband households plan to buy a smart home device in the next 12 months, but most purchases are “minor” devices such as smart lightbulbs and thermostats. Only 19% plan to buy a smart major appliance in the next 12 months, meaning millions of dishwashers, clothes dryers, and refrigerators with no smart features will remain in use for the foreseeable future. Unconnected legacy devices create dead zones in the home that...

The majority of security system owners continue to rely on professional installation for their monitoring needs, but self-installation is growing. Parks Associates research finds that 19% of owners report completing their own installation or having a friend or family member complete the task. Nearly half of security system owners had their install completed by the company that sold the system or by a hired contractor. After removing homeowners who do not remember how their system...

Guest blog post by John Gardner and Walter Masalin, Nokia Growth Partners As obesity and leading a sedentary lifestyle has become more common across the western world, the consequences have started to show at scale. Preventable diseases have become more common, and in fact, the World Health Organization predicts that as much as 20% of the causes of deaths today are attributable to diseases that were either preventable in the first place or could have been managed to prolong life...

Companies in connected CE and the entertainment IoT space are watching the emergence of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to determine their impact on device development, content creation, and consumer engagement. Familiarity with VR and AR technologies is still limited but growing, especially among the younger generations. According to Parks Associates research, 63% of U.S. broadband households are not familiar or know nothing about virtual reality, leaving a wide...

Before attending CONNECTIONS™Europe  in Amsterdam, Tobin Richardson , President and CEO at ZigBee Alliance, answered several industry questions: Where do you feel the largest opportunity is for the smart home industry in Europe? The biggest opportunity will come from the establishment of open product ecosystems. Lighting is ‘illuminating’ the way for many applications, and LED is a great way for product and service providers to gain entry to the home with...

IoT research firm Parks Associates recently released its updated top 10 list for OTT video services, which showed the majority of OTT video consumption is now on Internet-connected TV. The list, which shows Netflix maintaining the top spot ahead of Amazon Video, Hulu, MLB.TV, and WWE Network, is ranked by number of paid subscribers, excluding transactional or ad-based services and based upon reported figures and estimates from Parks Associates’ OTT Video Market Tracker ....