Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Buying a home? Sellers may use cameras, microphones to spy on house hunters

About 9.4 million U.S. homes, or 7.4% of the total, are equipped with Wi-Fi enabled cameras and mics, says Brad Russell, research director for Parks Associates, a consumer technology research firm. As many as 11 million or so have similar but more limited set-ups trained on the doorstep or outside the house, or embedded in a light fixture, Russell says. That means up to 13% of homes have at least one Wi-Fi camera and mic. The cameras often are visible but can be hidden in stuffed animals, like a “nanny cam,” or concealed in bookshelves. This Web-enabled do-it-yourself home surveillance market didn’t even exist five years ago, Russell says.

From the article "Buying a home? Sellers may use cameras, microphones to spy on house hunters" by Paul Davidson.

Previously In The News

Choose-Your-Own-Adventures Just Landed on Netflix. Yes, Netflix

Books and videogames have done this for years, but achieving good results with video has proved difficult. Beyond making the technology work, open-ended storytelling doesn't make much sense from a bus...

AT&T Deal: Merger For New Media Era Or A Bad Remake?

Pay-TV operators are seeing a "slow erosion of the core business," analyst Brett Sappington at Parks Associates said. "After years of attempts to be more than just a 'dumb pipe,' pay-TV operators h...

Smart household devices may be your biggest security blindspot

New research from Parks Associates shows 41 percent of U.S. homes with wifi plan to purchase a smart appliance or other wifi-connected household device in the next 12 months. The international rese...

Netflix's Hidden Price Hike

Do consumers make the jump? Studies suggest that they do. The most recent Parks Associates study of Netflix's tiers, released in summer of 2018, showed a significant increase in the number of premium...