Conference host Parks Associates announces research showing 78% of U.S. broadband households bought at least one connected CE device in the last 12 months and 58% plan to buy one in 2016

Parks Associates is celebrating the market research firm’s most successful CONNECTIONS™: The Premier Connected Home Conference this week, May 24-26 in San Francisco, with more than 650 attendees from a wide array of leading companies in the IoT space.

“In the 20 years that Parks Associates has hosted CONNECTIONS™, the connected home has evolved from a high-end concept toward a mass-market opportunity with incredible revenue potential,” said Stuart Sikes, President, Parks Associates. “We have reached a unique point where IoT and connected home technologies are touching every aspect of life for the consumer - from new smart home and streaming media services to mobile apps that control the connected devices in their home. Growth rates will vary and some experiments will fail, but exciting technologies are flooding the connected consumer space.”

Today’s keynotes included Rob Comstock, Executive Vice President, Operations, Cablevision Systems Corporation, and Robert Parker, Senior Vice President of Engineering, SmartThings. The day started with a discussion between Brett Sappington, Senior Research Director, Parks Associates, and Barbara Kraus, Director of Research, Parks Associates, about the top trends for “Connected Entertainment in the IoT.”

“AT&T announced its own over-the-top service recently, one of many examples of pay-TV providers responding to the opportunities and pending competition in OTT,” Sappington said. “Pay-TV providers want to minimize erosion of subscribers and are responding with skinny bundles as well as their own OTT services. It started with Sling TV in 2015, and as we get deeper into 2016, we will likely see operators such as Comcast and CenturyLink launching or expanding their own OTT or IP-based video services. These new services will change the dynamics of competition for subscribers going forward.”

“Virtual reality is a top trend in connected entertainment and CE, especially given all the venture capital money going into this area,” Kraus said. “With the novelty of the technology and the money flowing into it, we expect to see more and more people trying it, in public kiosks, and as more affordable headsets become available. VR will be a new experience for consumers and highly immersive, but to be successful long term, it needs to have sustainable use cases, and it needs to be a product that can be enjoyed with others.”

The research directors also noted privacy continues to be a big concern for consumers. Parks Associates research shows 44% of U.S. broadband households are extremely concerned that their private information will be stolen when they connect devices to the Internet.

Other highlights from day two of CONNECTIONS™ include:

• Rovi, Assurant, BrightLine, Ellation, and Ericsson participated in the session “OTT and the Transformation of Pay TV.”
• Kent Dickson, Co-founder and CEO, Yonomi, said, "The most pressing issues for consumer IoT are simplicity and value. How do you make the connected lifestyle so easy and intuitive that anyone can use it? And how do you make it so compelling that once you experience it, you never want to live without it?”
• The session “Smartphone Apps and APIs: Lifeline for the Connected Consumer,” featuring executives from Yonomi, Cozify, Lutron, and IFTTT Inc., examined the role of the smartphone in the smart home.
• Speakers from Cox, Logitech, NXP Semiconductors, Canary, leakSMART and Verizon discussed the role of security in expanding the value of the smart home in the session "Security Innovations: Expanding the Smart Home Experience." Parks Associates research finds that one-half of all security system households in the U.S. own at least one smart home device.
• Executives from Facebook, Gracenote, comScore, Intertrust, and Jabil discussed big data and the importance of personalization in the session “Personalizing Connected Entertainment: Metrics and Big Data.”
• Executives from Roku, iRobot, and Accedo examined the trends toward virtualization in the CE industry and how the mix of streaming services, software, connected devices, and cloud services is redefining the CE business model.
• Executives from Stringify, Misfit Wearables, and Withings addressed the evolution of digital health, home controls, and the role of wearables in the smart home during the session “IoT: Wearables and Smart Home Use Cases.”

"The smartphone is the fulcrum for nearly every activity in the connected lifestyle and smart home,” said Harry Wang, Senior Research Director, Research, Health and Mobile Product, Parks Associates. “At CONNECTIONS™, businesses are addressing the new relationships that consumers have with their smartphones through smart home apps, entertainment controls, and other capabilities created through APIs.”

CONNECTIONS™ Sponsors include Reception Sponsors CEL and Zonoff; Session Sponsors Icontrol Networks and PlumChoice; Lunch Sponsors Coldwell Banker and NXP; Silver Sponsors Alarm.com, Assurant, Asurion, Centercode, ROC-Connect, Support.com, ULE Alliance, WiZR, and ZigBee Alliance; Bronze Sponsors Audio Analytic, Ayla Networks, Cirrent, EVRYTHNG, Flextronics, Honeywell, HP, iQor, mnubo, People Power, PlanetEcosystems, WeatherBug Home, and Z-Wave; Program Guide Sponsor Vivint; Breakfast Sponsors Greenwave Systems and leakSMART; and Break Sponsors Home8, HomeAdvisor, Nortek Security & Control, State Farm, and Tyco.

For more information on CONNECTIONS™, visit www.connectionsus.com. Follow the conference on Twitter at @CONNECTIONS_US, #CONNUS16, and on the CONNECTIONS™ Industry Insights Blog. To schedule an interview with an analyst or request specific research, contact Holly Sprague at hsprague@gmail.com, 720.987.6614.

About CONNECTIONS™

Parks Associates' 29th annual CONNECTIONS™: The Premier Connected Home Conference is hosted May 13-15 at Renaissance Dallas at Plano Legacy in Plano, Texas, and brings industry leaders together to provide insights and business forecasting about the adoption of technology including broadband, smart home, security, connected health, energy, and home automation.

CONNECTIONS™ provides ongoing insights throughout the year with virtual and in-person conference sessions. Parks Associates' analyst team leads the conference sessions, which are focused on technology innovations, consumer adoption and trends, product and service forecasts, and the evaluation of new business strategies, partnerships, monetization opportunities, and value-added service design.

CONNECTIONS™ is a pivotal platform for partnerships and exploring the future of technology adoption and its impact on consumers and businesses. www.connectionsus.com