Connected devices exist for every corner of the modern home. Homeowners can now purchase smart devices for entertainment, home intelligence, comfort (mainly HVAC), access control, energy efficiency, connectivity, safety, wellness, and daily tasks. The intelligent assistant, a product of advances in artificial intelligence and voice technology, is now a workable control center for the connected home.

The Rise of Smart Connected Homes

The marked increase in disposable incomes in some emerging markets, together with the escalation in the number of Internet users worldwide, is an essential dynamic driving the demand for smart homes. Continuous enhancements to Internet speed for residential users also encourage growth in the market. Also, the increasing emphasis on controlling energy use among homeowners has boosted the demand for automated energy-saving appliances and devices.

Practical Uses of Smart Connected Homes

Homeowners enjoy being able to adjust their air conditioning and heating systems using an app while on their way home so that the temperature is comfortable when they enter their homes. They also like having smart home surveillance equipment, which can make homes more secure when recording events on the outside, and also help frazzled parents keep it together when monitoring the activities of toddlers and small children on the inside.

Another miracle of the connected home is the ability to tell the vacuum cleaner to begin its shift or to control washing machine cycles remotely via smartphone. Samsung is a leader in the creation of smart devices for the home, including white goods such as smart refrigerators, entertainment systems, and, of course, smartphones. Apple is also a market leader with its Homekit system, and Google, with Nest.

Smart Beds are emerging with new products that emphasize beds using the internet to adapt to preferences and contour to the human body.

Importance of Design in Connected Homes

With the price of smart home devices decreasing as newer and more innovative tech hits the market, it’s now becoming a lot cheaper to protect the average home cost-effectively. The risk of being burglarized is alleviated as householders take steps to increase the security of their homes. The occupants can enjoy their homes more since they now feel more secure.

Smart homes present some fascinating prospects for homeowners to transform the way they live and work, and to reduce energy use at the same time. In fact, the smart home will soon become but one unit in the smart city, which is expected to bring advances in healthcare, public services, transportation, and utilities. The market is currently more concentrated towards luxury smart devices, but more and more systems and platforms are coming on stream to address the basic needs of users.

On the other hand, some prospective users are skeptical of smart home technology, fearing that it will cause them to become lazy over time. Too much automation can also water down specific activities, such as cooking, or even brewing a nice cup of coffee. It will probably come down to users adopting the technologies that make the most sense for their situations.

Why Smart Homes and Connected Homes Can Be Useful

Phones, laptops, televisions, fitness wristbands, appliances, security sensors, utilities and more are uniting to form an entirely interconnected, easy to control environment. Communications service providers are poised to reap massive benefits from this proliferation of smart devices, since most of them have high levels of consumer trust, and they also have extensive current customer bases, and possession of network infrastructure.

Smart devices in the home are useful for entertainment, comfort, security, and for features geared to a tech savvy millennial population as well as an aging population. Drivers behind their adoption include increasing the desire for comfort, safety and security by consumers, technological innovation in analytics, sensors, and touch screens, and the popularity of IT dashboards and web portals.

The smart home market will take off if the price of connected devices fall and the general public comes to understand the benefits of these products. As we have mentioned, the next logical step is smart cities, and the advantages will redound not only to the consumer, but also to communications service providers, and to device manufacturers, as connectedness goes to the next level.

Types of Smart Home Market Research

We conduct Qualitative, Quantitative and Strategy Research. Qualitative Research uncovers the “why” behind behavior, attitudes and decision making. Quantitative research measures the extent of phenomena such as how much customers are willing to pay for products. Strategy Research uncovers the competitive dynamics surrounding your brand and market players. It identifies ways to develop uncontested market space.

Our solutions include:

Focus Groups
Online Communities
Surveys
Customer Interviews
In-Home Ethnography
Customer Journey Mapping

Smart Home Network Market Research

We help clients to examine the current market dynamics for home network products and home network services. For this market, these products and services are defined as follows:

Home network products which include wall pad or panel products that are connected with a lobby phone, security phone, and sensor devices. Today construction companies represent the primary market for these products (B-to-B) with a key customer being multi-family housing.
Home network services which include service providers of home security and energy control solutions that employ connected digital door locks and wall pad products.

Both of these offerings can work in conjunction with digital door lock devices which include products that allow users to set a passcode to lock and unlock the door.

Some of these offerings currently provide mobile solutions while others do not. We provide an understanding of the current market and market potential for both non-mobile and mobile offerings for home network products and services.

More specifically, we help you to better understand home network products, particularly wall pad products, and home network services, relative to the following metrics:

Overall market size for home network products, especially wall pads, and home network services
Competitive landscape – key competitors & profiles of competitors. This includes size, type of organization, leadership, business structure, years in business, business models, sales, profits.
Sales & marketing channels for each key competitor such as retail, dealers, distributors within the B-to-B market
Positioning of key competitors such as capabilities, market positioning, brand strengths & weaknesses, pricing structures.
Understanding of relationship of these products to digital door locks. How are they currently connected, how will they be connected in the future.
Drivers of purchase decision & product selection what matters most to B-to-B decision makers & purchasers such as property owners, managers, builders, developers, contractors. When looking for products & solutions, how are they using products, solutions available today, and what do they want to be able to do with products & solutions in the future
Short-term and long-term market potential for current technologies. What is the potential and viability for existing products – both non-mobile versus mobile offerings
Evolving trends and market potential for new technologies. What new products & solutions are entering new markets such as mobile & connected products and solutions, connected home, IOT, and how is the market responding.