One of the hurdles to smart home adoption has been the complexity. What happens now is someone orders a bunch of devices or buys some things in a big box store, and they plug them all in at home, and then something goes wrong. Their Wi-Fi isn’t efficient enough to support all the devices across the house, or the devices don’t all work together, or the homeowners can’t figure out how to set the network up, and, ultimately, they aren’t blown away by the potential of the smart home.
What the Echo has proven, is that when your devices go beyond answering questions to actually conversing with you and listening and learning your context, then they are proving their value. People are starting to appreciate the benefits from this initial round of speech-enabled products. They like the frictionless interaction through voice, and they are rapidly incorporating devices like the Echo Show into their day-to-day lives. Positive experiences are then encouraging them to take the plunge with other smart home technologies. According to Parks Associates, 53 percent of owners of smart speakers with personal assistants, like Amazon Echo and Google Home, report having a smart home device as well.
From the article "Amazon Echo Show Ushers in Smart Home Transformation" by Miles Kingston.
Approximately 12 percent of broadband households in Canada have a smart home device such as a smart thermostat, smart door look, or video doorbell, compared to 26 percent in the US, according to data...
It’s a “burden” on do-it-yourself smart home consumers to have to know and understand the various smart home protocols, said Raya Sevilla, ADT senior vice president-product, at Parks Associates’ Thurs...
Sales of smart thermostats in Western Europe are set to rise from less than 700,000 units in 2016 to more than one million units by 2020, according to a report on smart energy and water products by Pa...
The smartwatch market has also slumped. Apple Watch sales are down this year, and Lenovo’s Motorola brand has dropped out of the market. Most people simply aren’t finding reasons to buy them: Smartwat...
