With Voice Now in 1/3 of US Homes, Move Into Other Devices Is Next, Says Parks

After reaching a third of U.S. homes at the end of 2018, smart speakers will see more than 64 million in sales by 2022, blogged Parks Associates Thursday. Voice is becoming a “key complement to smart home device adoption and ownership,” providing a simple way to interact with devices and creating the opportunity for a centralized user interface in the connected home, said analyst Dina Abdelrazik. The next step will be “integration of voice among multiple device categories,” which will help reduce smart home fragmentation, she said. Voice control of smart home devices is on the rise, with 21 percent of smart home owners having used voice to power devices on and off, 18 percent to check a device’s status, said Parks. With voice popularity and use cases expanding, device makers and service providers are looking to capitalize on the market opportunity by integrating voice with their current offerings, either by creating a proprietary technology or integrating with an available one. Amazon and Google have made it easier for companies to bring voice-based solutions to market “while creating competition for consumer mindshare," Abdelrazik said, and Apple and Samsung are promoting their own solutions in the increasingly crowded market.