Brandon Ridenour, CPO/CTO, HomeAdvisor, provides insight on several key industry trends for Parks Associates’ 20th-annual CONNECTIONS Conference, which will be held May 24-26 in San Francisco:
How is your company engaging consumers through new technology solutions?
HomeAdvisor brings an innovative approach to online/internet marketplace solutions, with our specific area of focus on home services -- matching the right professional with the right home owner at the right cost and time. We’ve developed our technology into a multiplatform app working across – iOS smartphones and tablets, Android devices, iWatch, Apple TV (later this year) Amazon Echo and this year we’re coming into smart home solutions with our partnership such as with Zonoff.
What is the biggest change you have seen in the past year in the connected home and entertainment industries?
The biggest change we’ve seen is that consumers are finally ready for the smart home/connected home revolution (or evolution). With the ubiquitous penetration of smart devices and mobile devices, and broad category public education of the safety, security, reliability that comes with the “promise” of the smartHOME, combined with new hardware options such as Amazon Echo and smartwatches- consumers demand is up and consumers are NOW ready for this convenience. So what we’ve seen is that “consumer readiness” for smart home devices is one big change this past year; the market is ripe.
What do you think is the biggest driver for the connected consumer market?
Consumers don’t want disparate devices and have gotten used to being able to access the same service across mobile and desktop. They are expecting to do so across other devices and need devices and solutions that can interconnect throughout their home (communicate with each other), and then also back out into the digital marketplace. Additionally, there has been significant improvement in voice recognition software and voice control technology which opens up opportunities for expansion of the space.
What is the greatest challenge for the connected home industry in the next year?
Many of the smart home devices are only as good as the services and apps that are made available on them and it is challenging for companies to keep up with development for so many platforms, especially when the industry is still in early adoption phases and winner and losers are to be determined.
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Ridenour will speak on the session “Smart Home Devices: Changing Business Models” on Wednesday, May 25 at 1:15 p.m. Other speakers on the panel include WiZR, Nortek Security & Control, August Home Inc., and SmartThings.
For more information on CONNECTIONS, visit www.connectionsus.com or register by clicking here.
