Providing market intelligence for more than 35 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

mHealth Study: Caregivers Want Medication Management Help

A study by Parks Associates finds that 11 percent of today’s caregivers are using mHealth tools that feature medication lists and reminders. However, that same study found that 27 percent of caregiver...

Roku Posts More Stellar Results In Q2 As Stock Price Continues To Surge

its earnings release, Roku cited data from Kantar Milward Brown anointing it the No. 1 TV streaming platform in the U.S. by hours streamed. According to a survey by Strategy Analytics, the Roku operat...

Starbucks has the most-used mobile payment app

Retailers and banks have their own mobile payment options. At least one research report from Parks Associates said that shoppers prefer mobile payment apps from retailers, and eMarketer noted that the...

Malvern-Based Home Automation Firm Bets Big On Europe

Smart-home technology is building quickly to a multi-billion-dollar business in Western Europe, say market researchers at Parks Associates, and the Malvern-based "Internet of Things" platform develope...