Connected homes aren’t yet sparking interest beyondthe early adopter crowd, according to survey of nearly 10,000 consumersin the U.S., the U.K. and Australia conducted by Gartner.
Across the polled regions theanalystfound that only about 10 percent of households currently have connected home solutions.
Meanwhile, three-quarters of respondents to the online poll indicated they are in fact happy to manually set temperature and lighting ― versus justone-quarter who expressed interest in having devices anticipate their needs in the home.
Amajority (58 percent) even indicateda preference for separate, independent, stand-alone devices ― i.e.traditional knobs and dials whose operationscan’t be linked together, norremote-controlled via anapp.The poll took place during the second half of 2016.
Justlast week Apple outed a shiny new website aimed at promotingits HomeKit software and Home App, seeking to sell the benefits of living inside a mesh of connected gadgetry to iOS users. A video on the websiteshows a woman waking up and being informed that her homeis “ready for the day”, and going on touse the app to do things like remotely raise/close blinds, switch on/off lights andbrew coffee.
But as TC’s Sarah Perez pointed out, thevalue proposition forconsumers of spending a lot of money on kitting out their homes with fancy connected gadgetry can be pretty underwhelming ― given it’s not all thatdifficult to raise your own blinds or push the startbutton on acoffee machine. And who, srsly, wants to receive wake up messages from their house? That’s some next level spam.
Add to that, managing connected gadgets via an app can come across as more of a time-sink not less, given you’re asking usersto spend time interfacing with/wrangling software toset-up and manage various profiles and device controls, instead of just flicking switches and pushing physical buttons at the point of use. Yet, as the Apple marketing video shows, connected homes continue to bemarketed with the promise of increased convenience.
Gartner’sfinding thata majority of consumers prefer the (manual) control of standalone, separate devices isn’t so surprising either when youfactor in myriad otherIoT-related concerns, whether it’s trust/privacy or security/safety…
let's connect a GAS OVEN CONTROLto the internet, what could go wrong? :ok::cool: pic.twitter.com/HJkybD5VJB
― Internet of Shit (@internetofshit) February 17, 2017
As it stands, the ‘I’ in IoT also all too often appears to stand for ‘ incompetence ‘. (See, for example, the current glut of tweets demonstrating how the Google Home connected speaker is happily helping to spreadfake news… )
Beyond performance problems with the tech itself,the people who tend to get mostexcited about remote-controlling their physical environment are typically nerds . And nerds are necessarily a sub-group of consumers ― albeit, the samesub-group closely involved in coming up with techconcepts to market to consumers in the first place. (Which perhaps explains some other recent tech missteps ― e.g.overestimated demand for smart watches/wearables.)
“Although households in the developed world are beginning to embrace connected home solutions, providers must push beyond early adopter use,” saysAmanda Sabia, principal research analyst at Gartner, commenting on the research in a statement. “If they are to successfully widen the appeal of the connected home, providers will need to identify what will really motivates current users to inspire additional purchases.”
“The emphasis needs to be on how the connected home can help solve daily tasks rather than just being a novelty collection of devices and apps,” addsJessica Ekholm, research director.“Messaging needs to be focused on the real value proposition that the complete connected home ecosystem provides, encompassing devices, service and experience.”
The analyst notes thathome security alarm systems, which are relatively more established in the market vs other connected home propositions,have nearly double the adoption rates (18 percent) of newer systems ― such as home monitoring (11 percent), home automation or energy management (9 percent), and health and wellness management (11 percent).
Italso suggests that providers of connected home offerings may find itchallenging to monetize the tech, with survey results finding that less than half of households currently pay for subscription-based home monitoring and automation/energy management solutions.
Again the more established home security alarm services stand apart ― as typically involving a monthly fee. (In the U.S., for example, where Gartnernotes thehome monitoring industry is more developed, 59 percent of households with a home monitoring solution indicate they do pay a monthly fee.) But itarguessubscriptionsfor home automation/energy management and health and wellness solutionsare a tougher sell asmore than half of current households are already using these services free of charge.
The challenge is even greater in the U.K., where few home automation services are subscription based and 58 percent of households with home automation get their services free of charge, according to Gartner’s analysis.
One bright spot in the research for Apple’s HomeKit/Home App approach is Gartner says respondents are starting to see the value of both having one app for integrating their connected home devices (hardlysurprising, giventhat ‘oneapp per appliance’ was never going to scale), andthe importance of brand certification for connected home devices and services. (Also not surprising if youdon’t want your connected gas oven to behackable, for example, or your connected security cam to spy on your family… )
Gartner found that more than half of respondents (55 per cent) rated 51 or higherforpreferring one app integrating all connected home devices and services, while a slightly larger majority (58 per cent) rated 51 or more toward the importance of hardware and services being certified by a specific brand.