Rod McLane, Sr. Director of Marketing, Ayla Networks, provided insight on several key industry trends ahead of Parks Associates’ 21st-annual CONNECTIONS™ Conference, which will be held May 23-25 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport:

What does the industry need to do to speed up the slow growth of overall smart home adoption?

The cost of IoT development may have to come down before more companies create smart-home products. In Ayla’s recent survey on the “Biggest Opportunities and Challenges of IoT-Enabled Products and Services,” we asked manufacturers about their top considerations for evaluating IoT technologies as they embarked on their connected-product development. And for those manufacturers already marketing IoT products, we asked them to look back and tell us what they’d most like to improve. Cost was the #1 consideration: 28.1% for those with experience launching IoT products to the market, and 26.6% for companies we nicknamed "IoT newbies."

What are the best use cases for consumers and the Internet of Things?

We’re seeing a great deal of traction in the areas of smart appliances, water treatment, and fire and safety for the home. 

What is the biggest driver for the adoption of connected products and services?

Voice assistants. We anticipate voice will become even more appealing, especially in the next phase in which devices like the Amazon Echo start the conversation without waiting for consumers to initiate.

What are the greatest obstacles to the adoption of connected products and services in the home?

One of the big concerns about connected products and services for the home is whether the potential benefits of developing such products outweigh the risks. It’s a valid question. The IoT is still pretty new, without the well-worn paths of more established technology areas. Plus, the IoT is really complex and requires levels of technical expertise and new perspectives that few home-products manufacturers have had the resources or time to assemble. Our research shows that consumer product manufacturers that have not yet launched their own IoT products worry that they may not be able to show IoT value to their customers, or that there is a lack of understanding of the IoT and its benefits.  Compared to those with companies that have launched connected products, the IoT newbies seem to overestimate the problems of justifying and explaining the value of IoT solutions. 

But our survey indicates that the perspective of hindsight—as expressed by the positive experience of many manufacturers that have already launched IoT-connected products—should give hope to those still on the fence. Maybe jumping into the IoT is a good bet after all.

McLane will speak on the session “Cloud Platforms, Data and IoT: New Capabilities to Deliver Services” on Thursday, May 25 at 10:45 a.m. Joining McLane on the panel are speakers from LogMeIn, Tank Utility, EVRYTHNG, and mnubo.

For more information on CONNECTIONS™, visit www.connectionsus.com or register by clicking here.