"connected CE" articles

While security has remained a key driver for smart home adoption, energy is rapidly becoming more popular. The big news of the day is the announcement of NRG Energy acquiring Vivint Smart Home for $2.8 Billion - with a focus on bundling and cross selling security and energy management services. Parks Associates recent consumer research suggests that consumers are growing more concerned about their energy costs and more aware of the environmental impact of their energy choices....

Consumers now have a deeper relationship with technology. The elevated use of connected devices for entertainment consumption, productivity, and access to services has proven durable even as out-of-home activities resumed. Technology demand remained strong entering 2022, and US internet households now own an all-time high of 16 connected devices on average. The consumer electronics (CE) category has displayed surprising resilience. Along with the unpredictability of the pandemic and...

Consumers want a smart and secure home that “just works.” Unfortunately, 54% of US internet households experience technical issues with their home networks, and most smart home device owners report technical problems with their devices. The ability to quickly resolve networking and product issues is critical to making the connected home seamless and enjoyable, but providing that experience means increasing support costs for internet service providers and device manufacturers....

CEDIA Expo 2022 hosted companies in Dallas, Texas last week from the home entertainment industries introducing new products and solutions in smart home/security, connected entertainment/gaming, and video/audio networking. The three-day convention also featured long-anticipated announcements relating to Matter, a new connectivity standard that aims to revolutionize the connected home experience. Parks Associates latest consumer survey work of 10,000 internet households shows that now...

This is an excerpt from Parks Associates research report, Context is King: Video & Audio Analytics , by Chris White, Research Director, Parks Associates . Context is king in realizing the vision of the smart home. To provide security, convenience, comfort, and cost savings, smart home devices must work together to collect data from tools as varied as cameras, microphones, and sensors and determine appropriate actions to take at just the right time. These data...

Smart speakers and smart displays entered 2020 as one of the strongest-performing new consumer electronics categories since tablets and smartphones. Their upward trajectory has continued, now reaching over half of US internet households according to Parks Associates research. Smart speakers and smart displays are on their way to reaching levels of adoption and ubiquity not seen since perhaps the DVD player. To that end, the products are now in their third and fourth generations, and they...

IoT adoption is growing across the world. This includes not just consumer smart home device adoption, but IoT deployments in industrial and business settings. IoT sensors and devices capture data and perform tasks, communicating over IP and other protocols with cloud or local systems to create intelligent systems and enable automation. These solutions support a wide variety of use cases, enabling more functionality while saving companies money and increasing revenue opportunities....

Wearables are the leading product category in connected health, with smart watches the most adopted product overall.   Smart watch owners are a particularly enthusiastic core of the connected health market, as they tend to own a variety of other products, including connected fitness devices, connected weight scales, and even more medically oriented devices such as smart thermometers. Since 2019, adoption of wearables from Apple and Samsung has grown exponentially, helping to...