50% of Remotes to Have RF in 2018

According to ABI Research, in 2013 10% of the remote controls shipped with major home consumer equipment will be RF-enabled. Over the next five years, the research house says, there will be a major surge in RF technology adoption for remote controls as vendors look to differentiate their products, and/or drive growth in smart home services.Initially proprietary RF technology was used, but equipment vendors have been quick to standardize. Three main interoperable standards are seeing adoption: Bluetooth, WiFi, and ZigBee RF4CE. Bluetooth and ZigBee have been the most widely used technologies to date and are expected to see significant growth, with increasing competition from WiFi as lower power solutions continue to be developed.