Prior to Parks Associates’ 13th-annual CONNECTIONS Europe: Strategies for the Smart Home and Consumer Iot conference, Mark Lufkin, CCO, Wondrwall shared insights with the analyst team to discuss challenges with rolling out smart home producs and services in Europe, revenue opportunities, and what is driving growth in European smart home markets.

Mark will be participating on the Voice-First Smart Experience: Innovation and Disruption panel on Tuesday, November 13 at 13:00. Panelists joining him on this session include:

Daniel Estrakh, VP Product Management, Connected Home & IoT, DSP Group
Bert de Haes, Co-CEO, digitalSTROM AG
Ermin Kosovac, Development Leader Home Smart Platform, IKEA
Yann Lechelle, COO, Snips

What are the largest recurring revenue opportunities for the smart home industry in Europe?
Value added services that use the hardware platform to disrupt an existing market. Insurance is a good example. Having a smart home system coupled with a home insurance offer can reduce risk, improve service and enable attractive new insurance policies that are relevant to the owners and occupants of the property. The challenge is whether there is a true benefit in coupling the service with the smart home devices or whether it is just a marketing gimmick.

What are the biggest challenges rolling out new smart home products and services in Europe?
The biggest issue is the mish mash of smart home devices, each with its own app that fulfill a single function and do not inter-operate or integrate. As a result consumers end up with smart heating or smart lighting but not a smart home.
Once the novelty of changing the temperature with an app or turning off your lights your voice wears off, consumers realize that like with smart meters in the UK, they are not seeing any real benefits from these "smart" devices. The industry needs to evolve from a smart home to an intelligent home that use AI and machine learning to deliver tangible benefits without being reliant on user input.

What channels to market are driving growth in the smart home industry?
As the market evolves to a smart home rather than just smart heating, smart lighting and so on, there will be a requirement to deliver a cost effective full home automation solution. This represents a huge opportunity for electricians and electrical installers and they represent a key sales channel for fully integrated smart homes. Installers will be key moving forwards.

We’re looking forward to hearing you present, but what are you most looking forward to about the show this year?
Inspiration!