New Research Forecasts Growth of Connected Home Market

In a recent report about the connected home marketplace, BI Intelligence illustrated that the next five years are going be a period of important growth for the industry.

There is still an understanding gap among consumers about what the IoT can do for them in their homes, according to the report, and therefore demand is still far from its peak. BI expects connected home M2M devices to become much more common in the next two years, when growth will peak. The study also evaluated consumer sentiment about smart devices and what challenges developers will face in encouraging mainstream adoption.

The results showed that connected home devices will ship out to consumers at a compound annual rate of 67 percent over the next five years. That’s much faster than the smartphone or tablet device industries have grown. BI’s research predicted that in-home M2M devices will hit an estimated 1.8 billion units shipped by 2019. This includes everything from smart appliances and safety and security systems to energy equipment like smart thermostats and smart lighting.

Despite the huge predicted growth, the connected home category will still only make up about 27 percent of all shipments within the broader IoT category by 2019, up only 2 percent from current levels. In terms of revenue, however, the growth looks much more impressive. Connected

home device sales should be at about $61 billion this year. According to the report, revenues from this market will reach almost $500 billion in 2019.

It will surprise no one that home security and home energy devices will lead the way, with appliances following as more and more consumers join the IoT.

The report is only a prognostication, of course, but it seems to signal big things for the connected home industry and no matter what the specific numbers turn out to be, big growth means consumer adoption. And that’s a good thing.