Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Fiber For Breakfast Week 3: How Connected Homes are Powering Independence as America Ages

From fall detection and emergency alerts to remote monitoring and telehealth, connected tools are reshaping how older adults stay independent at home. That shift was at the center of this week’s Fiber for Breakfast, where Gary was joined by Elizabeth Parks, President and CMO of Parks Associates, to walk through new data showing how older adults and caregivers are using connect technology — and the critical role broadband connectivity plays beneath it all.  

Parks Associates’ research draws on surveys of 8,000 U.S. internet households conducted quarterly for more than a decade, offering a long-term view into how technology adoption is changing inside the home. One of the clearest trends Elizabeth shared is the rapid move toward connected living. Nearly half of all U.S. households now have at least one smart home device, and the average home supports 17 connected devices, ranging from streaming TVs and security cameras to sensors and voice assistants. 

That connected foundation is becoming especially important as the caregiver market grows. Parks Associates estimates that 30 million households include someone who is currently caring for an older adult, or expects to be within the next five years, representing one quarter of all U.S. households. 

Elizabeth noted that consumers across age groups, including those 75 and older, show strong interest in paying monthly fees for services that support safety, health monitoring, and peace of mind. That demand is helping turn assistive care into a multibillion-dollar market and opening new opportunities for broadband providers, not just as connectivity enablers, but as potential service partners. 

Throughout the discussion, one theme kept resurfacing: these applications only work as well as the network underneath them. “That always–on, highly reliable connection becomes very important,” Elizabeth said, particularly when technologies are tied to safety, health and real-time monitoring. A dropped signal or failed upload isn’t just inconvenient; it can undermine trust in the entire system. Parks Associates’ data consistency shows that higher-quality connections correlate with more advanced and higher-value applications in the home, reinforcing fiber’s role as the platform for next-generation services.  

The conversation also touched on the growing influence of AI, from smarter routers and predictive health monitoring to more proactive customer service tools. Many of these capabilities, Elizabeth noted, are already entering the market, and they will only increase the volume and importance of data moving through the home.   

From the Fiber Broadband Association's article, "Fiber For Breakfast Week 3: How Connected Homes are Powering Independence as America Ages" 

Previously In The News

Are Smart TV Designs Taking Home Security for Granted?

Security has been a growing concern with the increased use of smart television and video streaming devices, observed Brett Sappington, director of research at Parks Associates. "For many years, the...

Smart Homes: The Power, the Pleasure and the Pain

Amazon's servers were down for a large part of the morning on the day the outage occurred, taking Alexa-powered devices out of commission. Incidents like this may occur more often as the popularity of...

A Home Robot Could Be Amazon's Next Gamble

Robot vacuum cleaners represent a thin market sliver, according to Parks Associates. They can be found in just 5-6 percent of broadband households. "It's not a breakout product, but it's far and ah...

Amazon just announced 5 offerings to shake up the home security market

It also hopes to bring new consumers into the market. The US smart home market has long been plagued by slow growth, largely due to device and platform fragmentation and high prices. However, consumer...

Phone:
972-490-1113
Mailing Address:
2301 West Plano Parkway, Suite 210, Plano, TX 75075
Expertise
Smart Home: Management and Safety Consumer Electronics Connected Health and Wellness Connectivity and Mobility Small-to-medium Business (SMB) MDU
Services
Research Memberships Visibility Memberships Streaming Video Tracker Smart Home and Security Tracker Broadband Market Tracker Channel Analytics
Events
CONNECTIONS™ CONNECTIONS™ Summit/CES Smart Energy Summit Connected Health Summit Future Of Video Smart Spaces
Resources
Press Releases Analyst Blog Parks in the News
About Us
Overview Team Contact Us
Store
View Your Cart

Follow:

© 2023-2026 Parks Associates. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy

Design & Developed By Agency Partner Interactive