EchoStar has fielded "many questions" about the home automation initiative it demonstrated at the IBC show in Amsterdam in September, said EchoStar Technologies President Mark Jackson Thursday on an earnings call. "We are excited about our marrying of our video expertise, along with our ability to offer customer-friendly and technologically enhanced products to the consumer home automation and security market," Jackson said. "We are continuing to work through final product development and marketing plans, and we will share more specifics in the future, as appropriate, on this product." The "end-to-end home security and control product" EchoStar showed at IBC gives consumers "visibility and control over their entire home ecosystem," accessible not only on mobile devices, "but also where it is most convenient -- the consumer’s television," the company said in a September IBC news release.

Deploying open smart home solutions that give consumers a degree of control over their ecosystem choices offers a competitive opportunity for hardware, software and service players if consumers know where to find smart home devices, said Parks Associates CEO Tricia Parks in a news release Tuesday. “Consumers want a group of products that work together,” but they have few choices today beyond a service provider or home control platform, Parks said. Citing a Q2 Parks Associates survey of 10,000 broadband households, Parks said nearly two-thirds of U.S. broadband households are unfamiliar with smart home products or services. Seven in 10 of respondents didn’t know where to buy smart home products, while 20 percent expected to buy one or more smart home devices in the next 12 months, Parks Associates said. Today, consumers largely make only “only one choice -- the service provider,” which controls almost every aspect of the available offerings, said Parks. Only Google has had the market strength to build a partner network of smart home products that work together without a central controller or platform, but many different models are emerging, Parks said. Market adoption is poised to grow as sales channels expand, services are subsidized and partnerships emerge outside the traditional CE hardware and services area, she said. The survey said 13 percent of U.S. broadband households own at least one smart home device; roughly half of consumers who own a smart home device are under 35 years old; and 60 percent of smart home device owners with more than one device find interoperability “very important.” Parks Associates predicts smart home device sales will exceed 20 million units this year and approach 36 million units by 2017.

Best Buy is poised for “strong market share” in the connected home space, said Janney Capital Markets in a report on retail store observations done during the Halloween to Christmas season transition. Among retail chains with electronics products, Janney said Best Buy’s recent expansion into the connected home market in 400 stores initially focuses on home security. Wireless cameras dominate shelf space in stores, Janney said, with Next thermostats, smoke detectors and automated door locks “less visible.” The connected home market will drive traffic in Best Buy stores in the near future “as it improves and becomes more consumer friendly,” said Janney. Lowe’s and Home Depot have laid claim to the connected home customer, but Best Buy will take share through its service capabilities, Janney said. In TVs, 4K Ultra HD and other large-screen TVs have started to show momentum that’s likely to continue through 2015, Janney said. At Target, meanwhile, Janney cited a “half-hearted” approach to consumer electronics, and questioned the retailer’s commitment to the CE category long term. It said Target didn’t have the iPhone 6 Plus on display, the TV category was “lacking the newest technologies” and overall Target stores seemed to “lag other players in newness.” While Janney didn’t see the strategy as wrong, it did say it was different “and could lead to lost relevance in the space.” Lack of branding power, relatively low margins and general “difficulties in merchandising this space” could be holding Target back from a “more substantive offering” in tech, Janney said. Target “may be making the right move, and perhaps it's best to leave the newest technologies to stores like [Best Buy], which has delivery, installation abilities, and infrastructure,” it said.