Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Parks Associates: Smart Home Players Look to Overcome Consumer Price Sensitivity

Parks Associates smart home research finds high perceived prices remain a top barrier to smart home adoption, with providers and manufacturers working to bring lower priced products to market and discontinue specific premium products.

“Perception of high prices is a key barrier to smart home device adoption, but it is also tied to the perception among non-owners that smart home devices do not offer any benefits to the lifestyle,” Patrice Samuels, senior analyst, Parks Associates. “Device manufacturers in the smart home market are evaluating multiple strategies to address the leading adoption barriers. Companies are betting that getting one device in the home, even as a loss leader, will convince consumers of the value of smart home devices and inspire future purchases. Our research indicates this is a sound strategy.”

Parks Associates notes that households that own at least one smart home device have an average of seven devices. Companies such as Eufy are offering lower priced models that retain most of the features of their higher-priced models, knowing there is a good chance that their customers will buy more products following this initial purchase.

The Smart Home Tracker, a quarterly service from Parks Associates, also finds that as new social distancing guidelines continue to impact schools and businesses, a number of tech giants – including Facebook and Google – are incorporating video conferencing solutions into their products and systems. The percentage of U.S. broadband households that report using video services is 54 percent higher than prior to the pandemic.

“One of the leading and overarching value propositions of smart home products is to improve convenience for users,” Samuels said. “Services like Zoom have become invaluable. Helping users to make video calls more conveniently increases the value of smart home devices in these times, and we expect to see additional integration around solutions like these.”

From the article "Parks Associates: Smart Home Players Look to Overcome Consumer Price Sensitivity" by Residential Tech Today.

Previously In The News

Amazon Puts Conversational AI Into Ring Doorbells

According to Parks Associates, 19% of U.S. internet households owned a video doorbell by 2023 — which represents a large installed base that’s in the market for software-driven updates. From the ar...

Are Your Smart-Lock Codes Safe? Survey Says Probably Not

According to a 2022 report by consumer tech research firm Parks Associates, about 12 million households had a smart door lock, and that figure has only increased since then.  From the article, "Are...

Comcast’s StreamSaver bundle ups price to $18 a month

Parks Associates published its “State of Streaming” report, which revealed service bundling to be the fastest growing enticement for consumers to switch telecom services. Also interesting: Base...

5 Things to Know: November 22

A new white paper from Parks Associates, developed in partnership with Schneider Electric, highlights consumer behavior around managing energy use with smart home devices — including smart lightin...