The smart home has come a long way in a short amount of time. Four years ago, Amazon introduced Alexa-powered devices that paved the way for other devices such as smart thermostats, smart security, smart lighting, smart blinds and windows and numerous other smart automation devices. Now, the smart home is forecast to change again, according to new data from ABI Research.
The market research firm predicts that technological developments and social, environmental, financial and even political change will bring a critical mass in the coming years to speed smart home development and value.
"Smart home capabilities are already becoming central to residents' daily lives,” said Jonathan Collins, smart home research director at ABI Research. “A swathe of new and emerging technologies will increasingly extend and strengthen that position through enabling a wide range of interconnected services within the home and beyond.”
There are six key concepts that ABI Research identifies:
- The Sentient Home — A smart home concept that automatically adjusts in real-time to suit a range of individual preferences to efficiency or weather changes.
- The Cooperative Home — A smart home concept in a network of homes integrated in a city or neighborhood to manage, control, use and share resources efficiently.
- The New Lifestyle Home — Is a smart home that supports simple and flexible changes in the use of space inside a home even as the home footprint reduces.
- The Home as a Business — A smart home designed to support and enable new revenue generating services for residents to leverage.
- The Low Impact Home — Where automated control over the selection, generation, delivery, consumption and disposal of goods and services for zero environmental impact.
- The Marketplace Home — A smart home concept where providers act as a mediator for companies, industries and service providers looking to engage with consumers.
"For some, the smart home future seems to be whatever a handful of global consumer technology giants, including Amazon and Google, decide to make it,” Collins said. “But that underestimates the wave of change coming to the smart home market and the opportunities that lie beyond the scope of even today's largest smart home players.”
While COVID-19 has made an impact on much of the global economy and reshaped how consumers’ daily lives are lived, the smart home has continued to grow with ABI forecasting 4% growth this year. ABI predicts the global smart home spending will continue to grow in the next five years to $317.6 billion, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.4%.
The full research can be found in ABI’s The Transformational Smart Home report.