Most US Consumers Wary of Value, Benefits of Connected Home, IDC Says

Most U.S. consumers are skeptical of the cost and utility of the IoT, said IDC Monday, citing findings from a survey it will discuss on a webcast April 21. But network entertainment applications are a “stepping stone” to a broader IoT experience, said IDC. Some 28 percent of people who own a home network stream online videos to their TVs and are “much more likely to express high interest in and adoption of home IoT applications than other home network owners,” it said. One out of five people who use home automation, monitoring and control devices say their home IoT applications solved a problem they didn't know they had, IDC said. "The long-run impact of the Internet of Things will be broader and deeper than we imagine right now, but the industry is still in the early stages of developing the vision and conveying it to consumers," said Jonathan Gaw, research manager, IDC's IoT consumer program. Some are confused about what constitutes the IoT, said AT&T last week, while Verizon said the IoT is going mainstream (see 1604080039).