Half of Americans See Smart Home Functionality Being a Major Part of Their Lives, Study Says

Half of U.S. consumers believe smart home technology will have a major impact on their lives, said a study from GfK on 11 leading-edge technologies. Smart home edged out mobile payments at 50 percent of respondents, while 42 percent of U.S. consumers said wearables would be important to their lives, said GfK. Participants could choose multiple categories, it said. For U.S. consumers, smart home technologies with the most appeal were energy or lighting (55 percent), security and control (54 percent), entertainment and connectivity (50 percent), health (45 percent) and smart appliances (42 percent), said GfK. The top barrier to smart home acceptance is cost, mentioned by 37 percent of respondents, followed by privacy concerns (26 percent). A quarter of U.S. respondents saw no barriers to smart home product adoption. The smart home has the potential to be one of the “biggest tech adoption revolutions” in decades, said Rob Barrish, GfK senior vice president-technology, North America. To counteract high-cost perceptions, smart home marketers need to focus on usefulness and emotional appeal, Barrish said. For the study, GfK interviewed more than 7,000 adults 16 and older online in September and October in Germany, the U.K., U.S., Brazil, South Korea, China and Japan.