Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Residential Security: Beyond the Walled Garden

For the independent security dealer, all of these changing customer and technology profiles is already happening. The appeal of the walled garden’s closed system is convenience and usability; however, that point of distinction is being eroded by those same factors.

Parks Associates recently mapped the smart home’s competitive landscape by looking for cues and harbingers in user reviews. What Parks’ Tom Kerber found was that walled garden automation was already showing signs of dying off.

“The breadth of [open] platforms is much more substantial,” Kerber says. “It will be hard to maintain a [vertically integrated] approach, or even, for that matter, a highly curated approach, when a very open approach can provide a similar user experience and provide much more access…to whatever product you may have or want to own.”

If there’s a key takeaway from the Parks Associates study for your purposes, it is this: The move from vertically integrated to open “could happen relatively quickly,” according to Kerber. “Our recommendation to smart home platform providers, as well as service providers, is to plan for that eventuality.”

This means security dealers may need to consider offering a broader range of products, he adds.

From the article "Residential Security: Beyond the Walled Garden" by Shawn Welsh.

Previously In The News

More People Listen To Music On Smartphones Than Make Calls, Study Finds

US-based market researcher, Parks Associates, in its study said that 68 percent of smartphone owners in the US listen to music via streaming outlets on a daily basis. The company also found, on a...

Study: 82% of US Broadband Households Subscribe to at Least One OTT Service

The margins between households who subscribe to traditional TV and those opting to cut the cord continue to widen, according to new research from Parks Associates. The number of households adopting st...

ONLINE VIDEO ROUND UP: Univision and Facebook Live, Amazon Chime, Comcast Announces XFinity Stream and More

Market research and consulting company Parks Associates' 360 View: Digital Media & Connected Consumers report that claims that 29 per cent of US broadband households get most of their news from social...

Humanizing Connected Home Experiences: Using Machine Learning and Voice Control

Comcast’s senior executive Sridhar Solur will provide the opening keynote: “Humanizing Connected Home Experiences: Using Machine Learning and Voice Control” at the 21st-annual CONNECTIONS™: The Premie...