Parks Associates research shows consumers value connectivity in appliances as a means to protect their investment, with 44% of U.S. broadband households highly interested in smart troubleshooting features. The international research firm, host of the 17th-annual CONNECTIONS™ Conference, announced today Honeywell, Qualcomm, AlertMe, and Arrayent will discuss connected-home strategies in a special session that examines consumer and market trends driving creation of the "Internet of Things."

CONNECTIONS™: The Premier Connected Home Conference, co-located with CTIA 2013 in Las Vegas on May 20-23, focuses on consumer trends, market analysis, and strategic insight from players within the connected-home industries.

The session "Integrating Connected Home Platforms with Connected Devices," Tuesday, May 21, 11 a.m., moderated by Parks Associates, addresses new features and functionality created as companies add connectivity to controls, energy, security, and home management solutions.

“Internet-enabled devices are common in the home, so companies are developing connected-home strategies, creating scalable platforms that ultimately will enable the Internet of Things, where objects in the real world have an accompanying virtual object in the cloud," said Tom Kerber, director, research, home controls and energy, Parks Associates. “Understanding what offerings consumers want and will pay for is a fundamental issue to help grow this market. This session focuses on new products and services, consumer demand, and the key value propositions that prompt adoption.”

Panel speakers:

David Bercovich, VP, North America, AlertMe
Shane Dyer, President,Arrayent, Inc.
Alan Stoddard, Sr. Marketing Director, Honeywell Security Products Americas
Steve Wan, Senior Director Technical Marketing & Business Development, Qualcomm Inc.

“If you have a friend with a mobile phone, you expect to be able to call, text, and email no matter what network they’re on. That’s the starting point for consumer expectations of connected devices in the home," said David Bercovich, VP, North America, AlertMe. "Home controls platforms need to take on the complexity of controlling multiple devices based on personalized rules and intelligent automation that simplify the end-user experience. The value of the connected home ecosystem will increase exponentially as more devices are addressable and interoperable on the same platform.”

“Cloud device virtualization is an important development because it solves three critical problems facing consumer product brand owners,” said Shane Dyer, President, Arrayent, Inc. “Virtualization enables the lowest-cost hardware possible because device complexity can be pushed to the cloud and on to smartphones. Second, virtualization makes interoperability among devices using different LAN technologies, such as Wi-Fi and ZigBee, possible. Third, virtualization can enable devices to connect to different application owner clouds, such as a home energy management company, retailer, or a security company.”

From the article, "Parks Associates Finds 40% of U.S. Broadband Households Highly Interested in Smart Troubleshooting Features for Connected Appliances."