Trending Markets for Smart Home Devices

Even before our soci­ety rede­fined how it inter­acts on and offline, con­nect­ed home devices were ris­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty. Forced to spend more time at home and away from in-per­son com­mu­ni­ties, the desire of tech-savvy con­sumers to cre­ate a smart-home envi­ron­ment to cohab­it dur­ing work­ing and leisure hours pro­pelled smart devices into a new era of prod­uct adoption. 

The sec­ond half of 2020 saw the glob­al smart home mar­ket grow about 13% in rev­enue com­pared to 2019. Fur­ther, research firm Omdia esti­mates that the glob­al smart home mar­ket was worth about $58.5 bil­lion in 2020 and fore­casts it to exceed $167 bil­lion in 2025. As more home­own­ers accept the idea of an inte­grat­ed and holis­tic smart home expe­ri­ence, builders and smart device man­u­fac­tur­ers have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to increase their val­ue proposition. 

But what kinds of prod­ucts are home­own­ers look­ing for?

We’ve gath­ered some exam­ples of smart home devices ris­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty around the globe. Read on to dis­cov­er what fea­tures make these prod­ucts so attrac­tive to home­own­ers and to under­stand the tar­get mar­ket for each.

Trending Smart Home Features

Voice assist products

Exam­ple: Voice con­trolled kitchen appli­ances are no longer a con­cept. Tech­nol­o­gy and kitchen appli­ance brands are now releas­ing prod­ucts with voice-con­trol capa­bil­i­ties in order to make the cook­ing expe­ri­ence more con­ve­nient for those who spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

Tar­get mar­ket: The appeal of con­nect­ed homes for con­sumers is that they’re able to stream­line and orga­nize day-to-day house­hold man­age­ment tasks and rou­tines. Between work, rais­ing chil­dren, social lives, and/​or main­tain­ing per­son­al health and hob­bies, con­sumers are increas­ing­ly turn­ing to brands that help make their dai­ly activ­i­ties feel more manageable.

Pre-programmed task accomplishment technologies

Exam­ple: There are many kitchen appli­ances such as air fry­ers and oth­er smart cook­ers that assist con­sumers in prepar­ing meals quick­ly and from the com­fort of their homes. Such appli­ances work with a series of pre-pro­grammed set­tings that enable users to plan meals in advance, set reminders and quick­ly pre­pare a range of recipes.

Tar­get mar­ket: Con­sumers (espe­cial­ly younger gen­er­a­tions) rely on tech­nol­o­gy for many day to day tasks, includ­ing house­hold chores and cook­ing. They val­ue con­ve­nience, effi­cien­cy and ease of use — all of which mod­ern, tech enabled smart kitchen appli­ances pro­vide. Fea­tures such as automa­tion, remote (smart­phone) con­trol and any­thing that makes life and tasks eas­i­er, all help to cater to the needs of this busy, mod­ern day consumer.

AI companions and guides

Exam­ple: As the con­cept of the smart home expands and voice-con­trol becomes a com­mon fea­ture of prod­ucts, kid-friend­ly fea­tures enter the user inter­face of AI home assis­tants. These fea­tures can engage, enter­tain and mon­i­tor chil­dren, there­by alle­vi­at­ing some parental stress.

Tar­get mar­ket: Being part of a dig­i­tal-savvy gen­er­a­tion, Mil­len­ni­als are most like­ly to invite tech­nol­o­gy to play a for­ma­tive part in their child’s life. The inte­gra­tion of these fea­tures into the home allows for the parental aids to be omnipresent and close by when need­ed, adding a lay­er of con­ve­nience and secu­ri­ty. In turn, this soothes the stress some might expe­ri­ence when they attempt to jug­gle life’s tasks — from going to work and doing chores to cook­ing meals for their kids and keep­ing up with the news.

Pet assistants

Exam­ple: Smart home pet doors are sold as after­mar­ket units that can be used with an exist­ing pet door for one or more pets. They will auto­mat­i­cal­ly track how often a dog is going out and com­ing in, while also allow­ing own­ers to set cur­few times. Own­ers can lock and unlock the unit remote­ly via their smartphone.

Tar­get mar­ket: Pri­mar­i­ly tak­ing off in North Amer­i­can mar­kets, smart home pet doors show equal adop­tion among male and female consumers.

The Future of the Smart Home

The smart home is grow­ing with 37% of all inter­net con­nect­ed homes hav­ing at least one smart home device. Adop­tion is pre­dict­ed to con­tin­ue to rise as pur­chase inten­tions are at an all-time high.

How­ev­er, this increase in pop­u­lar­i­ty has not come with­out some set­backs for con­sumers, retail­ers, and sup­pli­ers alike, which pose chal­lenges for brands attempt­ing to emerge in the space. Top chal­lenges include:

• High smart prod­uct return rates, due to incom­pat­i­bil­i­ty with oth­er devices or brands

• Slow inter­net speeds ham­per­ing cus­tomer per­cep­tions of the product

• Loss of device con­nec­tiv­i­ty inter­fer­ing with cus­tomer experience

So, what can home improve­ment prod­uct man­u­fac­tur­ers do to increase mar­ket adop­tion of exist­ing and new to mar­ket smart home products?

Increasing Market Share and Customer Satisfaction

Many of the most valu­able fea­tures of smart home devices are those that help make home­own­ers’ lives quick­er, eas­i­er or more effi­cient. Posi­tion around that.

Fur­ther, if you can inte­grate a sen­sor into your prod­uct that alerts a home­own­er of main­te­nance needs, or of urgent issues, you will improve cus­tomers’ qual­i­ty of life and sense of con­trol over their environment.

Con­sumers who are shop­ping for smart devices for their homes are not only shop­ping through a lens of improv­ing their qual­i­ty of life, though. In cer­tain prod­uct cat­e­gories, smart home devices have quick­ly become an aid for the resale val­ue of the home. This will mat­ter increas­ing­ly dur­ing shifts from a sell­er’s to buy­er’s mar­kets and dur­ing a cool­er hous­ing mar­ket in general.

Look­ing ahead to the future, a holis­tic smart home expe­ri­ence free of clash­ing tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms is some­thing younger, more inter­net-savvy and con­nect­ed gen­er­a­tions are sig­nal­ing appre­ci­a­tion for as they move into home buy­ing years. 

Part­ner­ing with devel­op­ers and oth­er smart device man­u­fac­tur­ers to cre­ate an inte­grat­ed expe­ri­ence is one strat­e­gy for help­ing your brand become syn­ony­mous with the new era of smart homes.

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