Adoption of connected health devices in U.S. broadband homes reached 41 percent in 2017, up 4 percent from a year ago, said Parks Associates Thursday. Parks will host a workshop on crossover opportunities in connected health and the smart home Oct. 25 at the Connected Health Conference in Boston. The connected home is an important component of the personal connected health market, supporting wellness and fitness, chronic disease management and aging in place, said Parks. Nascent technologies including artificial intelligence and voice-activated devices are “creating new opportunities and spurring innovation," said Richard Scarfo, conference director.

TP-Link added a webcam to its Kasa smart home product family, it said in a Tuesday announcement. The KC120 Kasa Cam ($129) records audio and video and sends a notification to a mobile device’s Kasa app when it detects motion or sound in the area, said the company. Audio is two-way and the camera will soon be Alexa-enabled for interaction with the Amazon Echo Show, it said.

Touting its history dating back to the invention of the melodious door chime, NuTone announced Thursday the NuTone Knock HD video doorbell. Users can see and speak to visitors over the internet from anywhere via smartphone or tablet, said the company. Features include motion activation, night vision, quiet hours operation and an optional alarm. The $249 video doorbell will be available this fall, said the company.

Homebuilder Lennar will unveil its first Wi-Fi-certified home design at Obsidian at Parasol Park, a community in Irvine, California, Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. PDT, it said in a Thursday announcement. Lennar is the first builder to put homes for sale under the Wi-Fi Alliance’s Wi-Fi Certified Home Design program (see 1706220052) that guarantees reliable coverage in every room of a home. Homes are 2,897-3,036 square feet. During design of Wi-Fi Certified homes, floor plans are mapped for signal strength and quality, taking into consideration building materials and other factors that can compromise Wi-Fi, said the builder. Mapping results determine placement of signal-extending Ruckus Unleashed access points that are built into the home during construction according to Wi-Fi Alliance standards, it said. Products in the program include Baldwin front-door locks and keyless hardware, along with Ring video doorbells that allow homeowners to see who's at the front door over the internet. Honeywell is the smart thermostat supplier under the program, and Lutron provides lighting dimmers and switches. Voice control in the homes is via Alexa, and wireless music is offered through Sonos solutions, it said. The system is integrated by a Samsung SmartThings hub, which offers control of the smart products via iOS or Android apps in or out of the home, it said. Prices start from the low-$1 million level, Lennar said.

Asus entered the busy home Wi-Fi mesh networking space with the Lyra system, comprising a primary hub, satellite hubs, security software and an app for setup and control. Lyra is targeted to multiuser families with connected devices competing for Wi-Fi bandwidth and is said to improve coverage challenged by walls, floors and windows that create Wi-Fi dead spots. Lyra uses three bands: a 5 GHz one for communication between bands and a second 5 GHz and a 2.4 GHz -- for fast connections to devices, Asus said. Lyra’s Asus AiProtection, a commercial-grade network security system powered by Trend Micro Smart Home Network, uses an intrusion prevention system with a deep packet inspection engine that’s said to analyze the contents of all data packets entering or leaving the home network and block malicious and suspicious ones before they reach it. If the software detects an infected device on the network, it instantly blocks it to prevent personal information from being sent to malicious servers, it said. The Lyra app’s software manages each device, internet usage allowances and app permissions and presents them on a graph. Suggested retail price is $399.

Half of U.S. broadband homes would be willing to share data and device control for electricity discounts, said a Thursday Parks Associates blog post. Across smart appliance categories, 51 percent of thermostat owners, 50 percent of water heater owners and 48 percent of dryer owners said they’d be will to trade data and control for discounts, said Parks. The consumer owns the data from smart products, and smart home product providers are the “stewards of the data,” said analyst Tom Kerber. “It is essential for all IoT players to understand consumers' willingness to exchange data for services, their views on privacy and security, and the conditions under which they will grant access to their data,” Kerber said. When presented with nonfinancial incentives, 40-50 percent of consumers are willing to share data, “under some circumstances,” related to warranties, product improvements, product education and remote technical support, said analyst Brad Russell.

Barbeque equipment maker BBQ introduced the CyberQ Cloud, a $255 temperature control device with Alexa compatibility that’s said to track and automatically control a cooking temperature. Users connect the device to a grill or smoker, and set the desired temperature, which the device then maintains, said the company. Along with the grill temperature, the device controls in real time up to three food temperatures, which users can monitor over Wi-Fi from a mobile device or PC, said the company, and built-in alarms alert users when food is ready. The device connects to the sharemycook.com online community where cooks can interact and share information.

Power management company Eaton will highlight its connected residential technologies at the PCBC builder show in San Diego Wednesday and Thursday, the company said in a Friday announcement. Eaton will show at its booth an energy management circuit breaker with internet connectivity and on-board intelligence that’s said to deliver energy use information and help optimize utility grid reliability. It will show its wireless LED downlight that’s controllable by Alexa, Wink and SmartThings platforms and its Bluetooth-enabled motion sensor for outdoor security lighting, it said. Home buyers are looking to builders and contractors to provide innovative, energy-efficient solutions, said Brad Paine, general manager in Eaton’s lighting division.

Smart thermostats will reach 13 percent adoption in North America, vs. 1.5 percent adoption in Western Europe, by the end of 2017, said a Wednesday Parks Associates research report. “Interoperability initiatives at the application layer are moving the industry toward broader compatibility,” said analyst Brad Russell. Interoperability advances aim to bridge the gap between the connected kitchen, connected entertainment systems, connected energy management solutions, “and what we think about today as the smart home,” Russell said. In the security monitoring market, meanwhile, national security players continue to show growth but the number of subscribers has grown only marginally since 2014, said Parks. Interactive services helped boost revenue in home security, and growing adoption of smart home devices and services will open opportunities to bring more U.S. households into the security market, “provided security providers adapt their business models to the new IoT reality,” said analyst Dina Abdelrazik. Some 26.6 million U.S. households with professional security monitoring will generate $14.7 billion revenue in 2021, said the research firm.

The typical house today, with 10 or more connected devices, is stressing the home network, which needs to be “faster, smarter and flexible enough” to be upgraded without disrupting existing infrastructure, said Dan Artusi, general manager of Intel’s Connected Home division, in a blog post. The challenge with many of today’s home networks is that using a singular connectivity hub doesn’t always provide consistent, reliable connectivity to every corner of a home because Wi-Fi degrades the farther a connected device is from the gateway, Artusi wrote. Intel’s solution for faster, more reliable broadband connections in the home is the Intel Home Wi-Fi Development Kit, which ISPs can use to develop a network of gateways and intelligent range extenders that anticipates and adjusts dynamically, ensuring consistent connectivity to each client device, regardless of the number of devices or bandwidth demands, he wrote. The kit is based on Intel’s new G.fast SOC, which combined with its new AnyWAN VRX618 transceiver, enable providers to bring gigabit access to the home via copper wiring.