According to Parks Associates, 50% of U.S. broadband households surveyed consider $20 or more per month for a comprehensive smart home service to be a good value. More than 26 million U.S. households own at least one smart home device, which represents a 35% increase from the beginning of 2016. However, privacy concerns remain a barrier to wider adoption.
"The key challenge in today's smart home market is to move adoption beyond the early market and achieve mass adoption," said Brad Russell, Parks research analyst. "We have seen recent improvements, with the adoption rate of smart home products increasing from 19% of U.S. broadband households at the end of 2015 to 26%. However, many obstacles and barriers still remain, including the need for apps that control all devices and innovations to extend smart capabilities to unconnected devices and create fully connected homes."
Regarding consumer concerns about smart home and Internet of Things (IoT) privacy, Russell said: "Almost half of consumers rank privacy as their greatest concern about connecting devices to the Internet, and 40% have experienced a privacy or security problem with a connected device in the past year. This market trend is a significant barrier to IoT development, as data is key in expanding these solutions, and if consumer concerns prevent them from sharing data, many value propositions associated with the IoT will falter."