According to Parks Associates, interoperability initiatives are key to smart home growth opportunities. For example, 11% of U.S. broadband households have a smart thermostat, up from 5% at the end of 2014, but the majority of those thermostats are stand-alone products and not integrated into a smart home system.
"Cloud-based API frameworks such as Works-with-Nest and interoperability initiatives such as OCF are providing a path for multivendor ecosystems," said Tom Kerber, Parks' director, IoT Strategy. "Smart home platforms face new competition from heavyweights including Google, Apple, Amazon, and Samsung, and interoperability initiatives will certainly impact the competitive landscape as well."
Parks research indicates that nearly 60% of U.S. broadband households want their networked cameras to work with smart door locks or smart smoke/CO detectors, underscoring the demand for safety and security use cases among smart home products.
"The smart home is in an early stage, where the primary perceived value is in the convenience of home automation," said Jennifer Kent, Parks' director, Research Quality & Product Development. "Consumers are only now starting to conceive of the additional value derived when devices collaborate to deliver more intelligent services. Bundling of complementary devices will reinforce a much more expansive value proposition for the smart home, which will illustrate to consumers the value as interoperable products work together to achieve use cases for cost savings, safety, security, and convenience."