Smartphones Primary Smart Home Interface, Parks Finds

Smartphones are the primary interface to consumers' smart homes, said a research firm report released Wednesday. It's helping create new app uses for music streaming services, driving interest in connected audio devices, wrote analyst Brad Russell. More than one-third of U.S. broadband households use their smartphones to stream music to a speaker or stereo system, said the research firm. Consumers 25-34 are the largest age group streaming tunes from smartphones to speakers, Parks said. Among all U.S. broadband households, 40 percent use a free service to stream audio and 26 percent subscribe to paid streaming audio services, it said. Amazon Prime Music is the top subscription music service among U.S. broadband households (10 percent), followed by Pandora One (6 percent) and Spotify Premium (4 percent).