Prior to Parks Associates’ 23rd-annual CONNECTIONS: The Premier Connected Home Conference, Arsham Hatambeiki, Senior Vice President, Product & Technology, Universal Electronics Inc. spoke with the firm’s analyst team to his thoughts on connected entertainment and smart home ecosystems.

Arsham participated on the Connected Entertainment and Smart Home: Bridging Parallel Ecosystems panel on Thursday, May 23, at 11:15 AM. Panelists who joined him on this session included:

Ashish Aggarwal, Co-Founder & CTO, Caavo
George Katsiris, VP Product Evangelist, Savant
Oz Yildirim, CMO, AirTies

Q: As the number of connected devices in consumers' lives increase each year, what solutions need to be created to allay rising consumer concerns around data security and privacy?

A: An unfortunate result of security issues with some low cost manufacturers, is the tendency to gravitate towards few larger and trusted known brands, and at times, spread of new unfounded concerns. The market would really benefit from standardization and regulation around security and privacy parameters of products and services.

Q: With the rollout of 5G technologies nearing, what impact will this technology have on connected consumers?

A: Unbounded connectivity allows for a new generation of services on the go, and can certainly change the landscape of service providers, content producers and device manufacturers. We may not recognize the market in 5 years.

Q: What is necessary to build a seamless smart home experience that crosses brands, platforms, and ecosystems?

A: Choice naturally brings fragmentation, and that can be ok, as long as the frameworks allow integration of specific services across brands to provide continuity in certain core experiences. Standardization allowed different browsers to access the same web content, same can be extended to the home while allowing room for differentiation.

Q: With smart home adoption flattening in 2018, what must the industry do to reach new buyers?

A: Entertainment devices remain the most widely used and available connected platforms, and are yet to be properly integrated with newer smart home offerings. This overlooks a substantial user base where close to 5 hours a day is spent on these devices.

Q: What strategies are needed to achieve a unified experience in the home for consumers between smart home and connected entertainment products and services?

A: Voice has proven to be a unifying interface to bring new services to entertainment platforms, without cluttering the graphical interface. This opens up the possibilities without undermining the core usage patterns of these devices.