Jeremy Hill, VP, Products & Marketing at Radialpoint, answers the following industry questions before the 2016 CONNECTIONS Summit conference at CES, January 6-7:

What is the most important next step to engage consumers in smart home solutions, connected entertainment services, and/or value-added services like tech support and connected health?

Smart home devices are becoming more accessible and affordable. However most consumers are still unaware of all that IoT has to offer, so the first step is to spread awareness of IoT devices and their benefits. Those who are aware of the IoT may have security and privacy concerns. In order to mitigate concerns, technical support teams need to be involved in selecting the right products, safely configuring devices, and offering responsive support if things go wrong.

What is the biggest challenge your company faces in 2016?

With the pace of the IoT market today it’s important to keep a step ahead of the products that are being adopted in homes and offices. We are leveraging our membership in the AllSeen Alliance as well as making sure that learnings that we are seeing from IoT call drivers are being incorporated back into our solutions.

What is the biggest driver for the connected consumer market?

Security and environment control systems are leading the connected market, but more and more platforms like HomeKit or Amazon Echo will show consumers what is really possible when everything works together in a seamless user experience. 

What are the most important initiatives your company is taking in 2016? 

In 2016, Radialpoint will continue to stay abreast of all the most widely used IoT development frameworks to ensure that our support teams can respond to any interoperability challenges that come along with the growing number of connected devices.

We also aim to increase the services that we offer to businesses and understand how we can help them with the challenges they encounter using IoT.

Another focus is to drive awareness among IoT device manufacturers about the importance of building support capabilities into their products.

Describe your vision for the smart home and entertainment markets in 2020.

Smart homes will be as standard as having a dishwasher or A/C. The experience will be seamless. No need to interact, speak or direct the smart home. It will learn from your habits, listen to your conversations and offer up the right solution, service, or action based on all of this data. Just like Google almost seems to know what you want to search for before you type, the smart home will do the same.

Jeremy Hill will be participating on the session "Support Solutions: IoT and the Connected Home" on January 7 at 11:00am. Other speakers on the panel include Ihiji, F-Secure, Support.com, and Sutherland Global Services.Register to attend today!

For more information on the 2016 CONNECTIONS Summit agenda, visit www.connectionssummit.com.