Consumers Willing to Pay for Connected Home Services, Especially Security

Service providers’ opportunities within the connected home include tapping new revenue streams in the form of services like professionally monitored interactive security subscriptions, or remote health management, according to research from Strategy Analytics. In addition to high-speed Internet connections within the home, the penetration of mobile broadband is spurring the market along too.

In fact, more than half of broadband households (54 percent) are interested in security, especially when bundled with remote monitoring and control capabilities, according to “Smart Home Systems: Consumer Adoption and Attitudes.”


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Thirty-two percent of survey respondents across France, Germany, Italy, the U.K. and the U.S. also said that they would be willing to pay for remote healthcare services for the connected home—depending, as ever, on the pricing. The highest level of interest in remote healthcare services was found to be in Italy, with a threshold of $10 per month.

Other value-added services that broadband customers would pay for include remote energy management (30 percent) and remote monitoring and control (47 percent).

Operators are eyeing the opportunity to leverage their broadband relationship to provide value-added services into the home as more and more smart appliances and devices come on board. But the equation has two sides: the connected devices generating the information, and the penetration of ubiquitous access through which to communicate with them.

“We believe that growing smartphone and tablet use is accelerating consumers’ desire to be connected to everyone and everything important in their lives, including their family and homes,” Smart Home Strategies director Bill Ablondi commented.

Potential adoption of smart home services is highest in the U.S., U.K. Germany and Italy, and less in France, the survey found. “The percentage of broadband households with both the interest in and willingness to pay for selected connected home solutions is higher than expected,” Ablondi added.

Some operators are already working on the opportunity. AT&T’s (News - Alert) Digital Life connected home service, available in Dallas and Atlanta, will roll out to eight additional markets in March and more than 50 markets by the end of the year.

 At CES (News - Alert), AT&T also jointly announced with Cisco Systems a wireless-based home security and automation service. AT&T will offer the service itself, and Cisco (News - Alert) will provide the Digital Life control panel and back-office provisioning and applications life-cycle management system, which allows customers to monitor, protect and manage their homes using a smartphone, tablet or PC.