Nearly Half of U.S. Broadband Households Have Privacy or Security Concerns about Smart Home Devices

Dallas, Tex., April 17, 2015--Research firm Parks Associates reports 47% of U.S. broadband households have privacy or security concerns about smart home devices. The connected home industries need to formalize strategies, such as consumer privacy rights, in order to push these markets forward, according to Parks Associates, which will discuss these topics next month at INTX: The Internet & Television Expo and CONNECTIONS™: The Premier Connected Home Conference.

“Recent high-profile media reports of hacks into smart baby monitors and connected cars, whether valid or not, have heightened consumer concerns over privacy and security for connected home systems,” said Tom Kerber, Director of Research, Home Controls & Energy, Parks Associates. “Companies need to move quickly to reinforce the security of their solutions as well as ensure the consumer’s right to privacy.”

The consumer research Privacy Concerns about the Smart Home finds that if firms offer a bill of rights to consumers, specifically the rights to be invisible, to approve who uses the data, and to be erased, these efforts could ease concerns for nearly three-fourths of U.S. consumers.

Parks Associates will host multiple smart home and security companies at CONNECTIONS™ on May 19-21 in San Francisco. The session “Integrating IoT into Smart Home Platforms” examines efforts to expand the ecosystem of interoperable products and realize the vision of the smart home, featuring the following panel of experts:

  • V. Rory Jones, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, PlanetEcosystems
  • Jay Kenny, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Alarm.com
  • Sebastian Popovic, CEO, Zipato
  • Adam Tichelaar, Director, Connected Home Solutions, Amdocs
  • Brett Worthington, VP - General Manager, Wink Inc.

“Finding the right balance between ease-of-use and security is a challenge in designing and deploying smart home products,” said Maia Hinkle, Research Analyst, Parks Associates. “Consumers do not want to have to enter a password just to turn on a light, so the market needs solutions that are cross-platform and user friendly. Consumers expect convenience and control both with their smart devices and the data that the devices produce.”

The 19th-annual CONNECTIONSTM: The Premier Connected Home Conference will feature multiple interactive sessions highlighting partnership opportunities and business models for security and smart home systems with executives from companies including ADT Security Services, Ayla Networks, Greenwave Systems, Honeywell, Nortek Security & Control, and WeatherBug Home.

Privacy Concerns about the Smart Home is available for purchase at www.parksassociates.com. To schedule an interview with a Parks Associates analyst or to request specific research data, please contact Holly Sprague at hsprague@gmail.com.