Interoperability key to sustaining smart home tech adoption

In fact, according to research recently published by Parks Associates, 34% of broadband households today own a listed smart home device, which is an increase of 24% from just three years ago. Additionally, the average number of devices owned per household with at least one smart home device rose in 2020 from 6.8 devices to 7.4 devices on average.

During Parks Associates’ virtual CONNECTIONS conference last week, Jennifer Kent, the organization’s Vice President of Research, pointed out that there has long been a difference in how consumers go about building out their smart home systems. While some have opted for a “curated” approach in which an installer, such as a residential security integrator, will deploy devices designed to work together and tie them together in a single user interface, many others have opted to build their own by buying disparate, do-it-yourself (DIY) solutions from both online and brick-and-mortar retailers over time.

The DIY approach affords consumers a greater number of device choices as well as the ability to avoid installation or ongoing monitoring or maintenance fees, however; it introduces greater setup complexity. According to Kent, 36% of consumers who set up smart home devices on their own say they experience difficulty and the number who experience ongoing problems with these devices also continues to rise as she noted that recent research from Parks found that 38% of smart home product owners experienced two or more technical problems with a smart home product in the past year, which is up from 11% just two years ago. In addition, 44% of those experiencing a technical problem reported they had difficulty getting the device to interact with other devices in the home.

“The basic value proposition of a home with technology that works together is simply not being met in many cases,” Kent says.

Despite consumers often buying these technologies separately, interoperability is still a key consideration. According to Kent, a quarter of network camera buyers said that the ability of the device to integrate with their existing security system was a primary factor for their purchase and smart lock owners also noted that it was important that it work with other devices in the home. In a recent Parks survey, Kent said 86% of smart home device owners said they want unified control of all their smart home products through a single app.

From the article "Interoperability key to sustaining smart home tech adoption" by Joel Griffin

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