Partnerships Offer Service Providers a Path to Long-Term Smart Home Role, Says Parks

Sales of connected consumer devices will exceed 520 million units by 2022, including networked cameras, security systems and connected health devices, reported Parks Associates. While service providers are well-positioned to deploy, maintain and service the smart home, they generally don’t want to develop and maintain a proprietary system to do so, said analyst Brad Russell. Partnerships with vendors that offer turnkey solutions can enable providers to serve present and future use cases, he said. “Service providers need to re-position themselves for growth and gain a foothold in the smart home,” said Michael Weening, executive vice president-field operations for Calix, which sponsored a white paper for Parks on strategies service provides can adopt to operate in the smart home market. Innovators in the market are “starting with tools that provide visibility into the home and supporting systems so they can deliver best-in-class whole-home Wi-Fi coverage,” said Weening. Once the foundational brands and systems are in place, such as those from “tech giants,” it will be more difficult for new entrants to gain traction, he said. According to Parks research, 24 percent of U.S. broadband homes subscribed to professional monitoring at the end of 2018, over 50 percent of consumers with professionally monitored security systems had basic interactivity and 10 percent owned at least one networked camera. It found that a majority of consumers 50 and older said they were willing to pay $30 per month for an independent living system for fire detection, panic buttons, automatic alerts sent to loved ones and home security devices to deter intruders.