Home automation systems have traditionally been installed in one of two ways: the economical, do-it-yourself model, and the expensive custom-designed installation. Both approaches limited potential size of the market: the first by requiring the homeowner to have technical expertise, the second because of its expense.
“The key inhibitors are the newness of the technology to the service providers, and the newness of the services to potential subscribers; a significant consumer education process will be required, but the telco and broadband providers are well positioned to do it.”
However a “third way” is emerging and it promises to fuel tremendous market growth: home automation as a managed service provided by the homeowner’s cable broadband provider or telco. Homeowners will be able to monitor their homes remotely, and control basic features such as lighting or air conditioning. These new managed home automation services will both compete with and complement the traditional home security alarm market.
According to the latest forecasts from ABI Research, there will be more than nine million security cellular M2M connections active in the United States before 2015. Practice director Sam Lucero notes, “Traditional security firms such as ADT will increasingly be joined in the mainstream by these new providers offering managed home automation services. Verizon Wireless announced such a service at CES this year, and Comcast is currently trialing one in the Houston, Texas area.
They key concept is that these are not primarily security alarm systems but basic home automation systems; they can incorporate a security alarm system as part of the overall offering (typically with the inclusion of a cellular back-up connection, as is the case also in the traditional security alarm industry). ABI Research sees this model starting to become really mainstream in 2012-2013.
As usual, however, there are factors that will inhibit this market growth as well as those that drive it. According to Kevin Burden, “The key inhibitors are the newness of the technology to the service providers, and the newness of the services to potential subscribers; a significant consumer education process will be required, but the telco and broadband providers are well positioned to do it.”
ABI Research’s “M2M Market Data” discusses this among other machine-to-machine communication topics. It tracks the M2M market on the basis of wireless WAN embedded modules and product revenue, as well as wireless WAN active nodes and service revenue. Shipments, connections, and revenue are segmented by region, application, and air interface standard.
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