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

The Smart Money: Residential Security Continues Market Shift

Parks Associates’ data shows that consumers no longer view security as a fixed installation, but as an adaptive service. AI-enhanced cameras, integrated subscriptions, and flexible monitoring options...

Streaming services with ad-supported plans outpace ad-free tiers

Parks Associates released new findings on the state of the U.S. video market during its eighth annual Future of Video: Business of Streaming conference. The research firm’s “S.O.S. State of Str...

Netflix, iHeartMedia Ink Video Podcast Distribution Deal

Upwards of 85 million adult U.S. consumers say they listen to a podcast for at least one hour each week, according to Parks Associates. From the article, "Netflix, iHeartMedia Ink Video Podcast Dis...

Forecast: US subscription TV revenue at $190.7bn in 2030

Parks Associates has announced the release of its Subscription Video Forecast: 2025–2030 report, offering an outlook on the future of the US TV and streaming video market. The report projects stea...