New energy research from Parks Associates finds consumers are enthusiastic about smart home offerings, especially safety and security app...
New energy research from Parks Associates finds consumers are enthusiastic about smart home offerings, especially safety and security applications, but they are very apprehensive about privacy issues. 360 View: Residential Security and Smart Home, which includes a 2Q 2014 survey of 10,000 U.S. broadband households, reports nearly two-thirds of all households are concerned that smart home systems will lead to privacy violations and unauthorized access to their data and devices.
Parks Associates will address the impact of privacy issues as well as growth strategies and emerging business models to increase consumer engagement in energy management at the sixth-annual Smart Energy Summit: Engaging the Consumer, February 16-18, 2015, at the Four Seasons Resort in Austin, Texas.
"Currently 13% of U.S. broadband households own at least one smart home device, and privacy concerns are more common among owners than non-owners," said Tom Kerber, Director, Research, Home Controls & Energy, Parks Associates. "Safety and security are the most popular use cases for smart home solutions, so it is not surprising that these security concerns extend to household privacy. All players in the smart home ecosystem will need to work together to overcome this challenge to market growth."
Smart Energy Summit: Engaging the Consumer, with early sponsorship support from Lowe's, Alarm.com, and EcoFactor, is accepting speaking submissions. The event will feature industry perspectives on key topics impacting smart products and systems, energy services and partnerships, and the Internet of Things for the connected consumer. The 2014 summit featured keynotes from Nest, Comcast, Lowe's, ecobee, and Austin Energy.
Topics for the 2015 summit include:
Successful business model transitions for the utility market
Role of energy management in smart home systems and home control platforms
Modeling energy solutions and integration into smart devices
Big data and analytics: extracting extra value from smart meters and energy services
Partnerships and new business model opportunities
Leveraging smart products to enhance Demand Response (DR) programs
Impact of smart devices in retail energy markets
Energy audits: expanding energy efficiency programs to whole-home solutions
Strategies to speed up the pilot process and keep pace with market innovation
Standards and interoperability: solutions that bring together the home's products and services
Balancing privacy concerns and market regulations with opportunities created by big data
The role of telecom and cable service providers as energy providers/managers
"Privacy and security standards, such as the guaranteed right to be 'invisible,' would ease privacy worries for the majority of concerned consumers," Kerber said. "The smart home market will need to develop standards to guarantee consumer protection in order to ensure its continued growth and development."
Parks Associates research finds the most popular use case for smart home systems is receiving alerts if a smart device detects smoke or fire, with 51% of U.S. broadband households very interested in this scenario. Among the energy-related use cases presented to U.S. broadband households:
30% are very interested in identifying ways to improve their home's energy efficiency
26% are very interested in receiving a daily summary of hourly energy usage
29% find a tool to notify them that their energy use is within budget very appealing
30% are very interested in the ability to monitor energy use in real time
34% very interested in receiving alerts when energy consumption is abnormally high
www.ses2015.com