Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

Amazon Echo Show Ushers in Smart Home Transformation

One of the hurdles to smart home adoption has been the complexity. What happens now is someone orders a bunch of devices or buys some things in a big box store, and they plug them all in at home, and then something goes wrong. Their Wi-Fi isn’t efficient enough to support all the devices across the house, or the devices don’t all work together, or the homeowners can’t figure out how to set the network up, and, ultimately, they aren’t blown away by the potential of the smart home.

What the Echo has proven, is that when your devices go beyond answering questions to actually conversing with you and listening and learning your context, then they are proving their value. People are starting to appreciate the benefits from this initial round of speech-enabled products. They like the frictionless interaction through voice, and they are rapidly incorporating devices like the Echo Show into their day-to-day lives. Positive experiences are then encouraging them to take the plunge with other smart home technologies. According to Parks Associates, 53 percent of owners of smart speakers with personal assistants, like Amazon Echo and Google Home, report having a smart home device as well.

From the article "Amazon Echo Show Ushers in Smart Home Transformation" by Miles Kingston.

Previously In The News

Sony Goes All In on PlayStation

Sony has also been trying to make the PS4 a set-top box. Channel packages for its PlaySation Vue streaming-TV service start at $30 a month in some places and include programming from U.S. broadcast ne...

Can Samsung Kill Siri?

Today, 40% of smartphone owners already use digital assistants, according to a recent survey conducted by Parks Associates. Not surprising, millennials are most likely to partake (46%), but -- as the...

63% In U.S. Say They Are Not Aware Of Virtual Reality

The study from Parks Associates found that more than half (63%) of U.S. households say they are not familiar with or know nothing about VR. Younger generations appear to be more familiar with virtu...

VR Consumers Need Convincing With Demos

Virtual Reality products may once have been touted as the hot holiday gift for gamers, but reports are showing sales of the products to be lagging behind initial estimates, and the problem may be gett...