This is an exceprt from Parks Associates Smart Home Dashboard. This biannual dashboard tracks ongoing consumer activity in the smart home market. This research quantifies movement, tracking critical metrics in the market, including adoption, purchases, and purchase intent across sixteen core smart home product categories. It identifies top purchase channels and average selling price. It also tracks the leading control platforms in the smart home and consideration of top ecosystem integrations at purchase.

The smart home market continued to grow in the second half of 2025, with adoption just shy of half of U.S. internet households. Tariffs did not meaningfully cool smart home device sales or adoption, and vendors limited price increases to the end consumer. In the second half of 2025, industry momentum was driven more by AI platform expansion, subscription monetization, and ecosystem control:

• Amazon and Google accelerated the rollout of Alexa+ and Google Gemini across devices, positioning AI-enhanced ecosystems as a key value layer for the smart home. Both players are also monetizing AI with premium subscriptions to unlock extra features.
• Matter 1.5 expanded into cameras, energy management, and closures, enabling a long-awaited piece for device interoperability.
• Bucking the trend towards more open ecosystems, Chamberlain blocked third-party smart home integrations with its myQ-enabled devices, in its Security 3.0 update.

OEMs are increasingly building Matter into new device releases and adding support for existing devices:

• IKEA introduced a new smart home range including 21 Matter-compatible products, expanding its interoperability strategy across lighting, sensors, and home audio devices.
• TP-Link added Matter compatibility and energy monitoring via firmware updates to select devices.
• Legrand launched new Matter-enabled switches and dimmers within its radiant® collection, bringing the protocol into professionally installed in-wall lighting controls.

The smart home industry is stable, and momentum with AI and added features is keeping consumers engaged. Winning the smart home in 2026 is now about making the smart home easy for new users reeled in by AI and enticing veterans with device orchestration and simple automations.

Despite tariffs and mixed economic factors impacting consumer spending, the smart home market grew with buying among both new and veteran smart home users.  Current owners added more devices, growing the Super Power User segment (10+ devices). Device ownership grew modestly across most smart home categories, and more heavily among video devices. Even several appliance categories that have been flat for several years showed an uptick in adoption.

• Adoption of any core smart home device jumped 4 points YoY, now standing at 49%
• Video devices saw meaningful growth, with an increase of 7 points among video doorbells, 6 points for smart camaras, and 4 points among floodlight/spotlight cameras.
• Smart appliance ownership grew, with smart clothes washer ownership increasing from 7% in Q4 2024 to 9% in Q4 2025, and smart clothes dryer ownership increasing from 6% to 8% in the same period.

The smart appliance bump may be related to end-of-life for existing appliances and rebates, while video devices have experienced wide-ranging releases that cover various price points and advanced features (including advanced AI features).

Manufacturers have continued momentum in advancing the smart home with aggressive portfolio strategies and ecosystem expansions. Maintaining that momentum in 2026 requires consideration for both device tiers and keeping pace for the new baseline set for feature sets. AI, for example, is a baseline for 2026.

Parks Associates will host the 30th annual CONNECTIONS™: The Premier Connected Home Conference May 5-7 at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara, bringing together connected home executives from Alarm.com, Silicon Labs, AWS, Ring, and more to explore the next phase of innovation in AI, smart home and security platforms, and intelligent consumer services.