Connected CE and Platforms

Home IoT Device Vulnerability Many consumers are wary of the vulnerabilities that come with IoT devices and the potential for hackers to expose their sensitive data. This is true among the general public, and even more so among those already owning smart home devices. At the end of 2019, nearly half of the segment Parks Associates classifies as the smart home disengaged (the 44% of broadband households not owning or intending to purchase any smart home device), cited data...

At CES 2020, many robot announcements were made with a focus around education, service, and emotional care or support. Last week, Samsung introduced two separate robot form factors: A tennis ball sized robot called Ballie. Ballie has a camera and is designed to patrol the home. It can serve as a fitness assistant, prompting consumers to get active, it can also interact with other devices in the home. For example, Ballie can instruct a smart vacuum cleaner to clean up messes throughout the...

CES is always an interesting time. Companies show off their latest and - hopefully - greatest, and we get to guess which of these things will actually still exist in a couple of months. This year, due to throwing out my back the prior Friday during the extremely daring and strenuous task of getting out of a chair, I missed attending in person. Instead I scoured the headlines for articles of interest. And, lo, I found something interesting. No, it wasn't cute robots. Or fake pork. Or...

Prior to Parks Associates’  14 th -annual  CONNECTIONS™ Europe: Strategies for Security and Smart Home ,  Stephen Goldstein , SVP, Business Development & Partnerships, Cirrent gave his insights on the smart home market with the firm's analyst team. Stephen will participate on the expert panel  Partnering for Success: Next Stage of Growth  on Wednesday, 20 November at 15:00. Panelists who will join him on this session include:...

According to Reuters and CNBC, Google (aka Alphabet) has made an offer to acquire Fitbit. This stands to considerably shake up the wearables space. Fitbit is the number one wearables company in the US—Parks Associates consumer surveys find that among the 19% of heads of US broadband households that own and use wearables, Fitbit has nearly 60% penetration—twice that of its nearest competitor, Apple. Looking specifically at smart watch models, Parks Associates finds that...

During Apple’s September 10th keynote event, several revealing announcements were made. As expected, Apple offered improvements and fresh products to nearly every category of its device lineup, including the next generation of mobile devices and flagship services. However, the most impactful announcements include new details on Apple’s video streaming service and a major price drop for the Apple Watch.  Apple TV+ Comes Out Swinging with Low Price Point and...

Smart home device ownership tripled between 2014 and 2018, and households utilizing smart home technology now own an average of six devices. As the number of connected devices in the household increases, so does the consumer’s risk of exposure to a data privacy breach. That risk is amplified by devices like smart speakers with voice assistants (Amazon Echo, Google Home, etc.), which collect massive troves of data, while device manufacturers potentially harness that data without...

Chris O'Dell, Research Associate, Parks Associates, will moderate the session  Creating Awesome, Trusted Voice Experiences for Consumers  at  VOICE Summit 2019  on Wednesday, July 24 at 4:00 p.m in Newark, NJ  at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). Voice has made a sizeable impact in the smart home and connected CE spaces with the success of smart speakers and personal assistants. The challenges are now to extend these capabilities to other...