New research from Harris Interactive has brought to light some interesting opinions on the Smart Home. The study surveyed “a representative sample of over 1000 UK respondents” and revealed that 74% are not aware Smart Home technology is already available and 19% definitely would not own a Smart Home System. Challenges and opportunities ahead for the industry. Read the full release below…
According to research by Harris Interactive, a leading market research agency, the main reason Smart Home Systems are not popular with consumers is a lack of trust; two-fifths (41%) of respondents claim not to trust any of their current service providers (including utilities, broadband, telecoms and home security) to deliver a system that would potentially enable them to control, and therefore reduce, their consumption at the touch of a button.
The research, which surveyed a nationally representative sample of UK consumers, also found that the majority of consumers (74%) are not aware Smart Home technology is already available, almost a third (31%) believe it will take at least five years or more to develop, while almost one in ten (9%) do not believe a Smart Home System will ever become a reality.
Consumers did cite saving money on household bills as a key priority however – half of respondents (50%) would be happy to source all services from the same provider if it made financial sense and a similar proportion (52%) identify saving money as a reason to manage their household’s energy consumption more effectively.
Further findings from the study include:
Saving time is not enough to convince consumers of the benefits of Smart Home Systems, with less than a third (31%) willing to consider using any services that will save them time.
Technological innovations per se are not of particular importance to consumers, with just one in five (21%) citing this as a priority.
Much the same as in their home, the majority of consumers do not use connected devices or apps to monitor their health and wellbeing, with three-fifths (62%) not actively using the technology, compared to less than a fifth (17%) that use them regularly.
Lee Langford, Research Director at Harris Interactive, commented, “Service providers and others that want to operate in the smart tech space have some way to go to educate and convince the general public of the potential benefits. This is still a very open field and the most trusted providers are more likely to be successful in the long term.”
The report is part of Harris Interactive’s Customer Power series providing brands with competitor benchmarking trends and insights about customer relationships and experiences. Customer Power is designed to help organisations understand how consumer interactions with their brands are changing.
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many times, though, consumers don’t know what they want until they see it …
also, advances often seem small, until for some reason there’s a need to revert to what was before – often it seems a big step backwards …
and Smart Home is still finding its feet – the approach, interface, and content, will evolve quite a lot, yet …
some are further along the road than others, of course, a few a lot further …
I find these kind of surveys quite useless.. back at the turn of the century if you’d asked people if they needed electricity a large proportion would be ‘no!’.. 100-ish years ago if you’d asked people if they wanted a radio in their house a large amount would have said no.. 70 years ago same for TV.. there’s always a tipping point where it moves from the elite to the general masses.. it just relies on it slowly penetrating public conciousness until it eventually becomes just the norm.
(That said i’d never trust my utilities company to provide those kind of services.. nor will i ever move to a cloud based system.. at least not until it’s 100% reliable)
I agree entirely with Chris. People are adverse to change and think they don’t want a smart home. But guaranteed if they were given a free trial they would change their mind
So true!! i was one among them. I was not knowing the importance of any smart home automation systems or services till i got one for my own house. Now i realized that i should have taken this decision prior. Dont wait guys technology is there to serve you its best.
I remember not too long ago seeing the same thing with smartphones.Right now, it’s mostly early DIY/tinkerer types using the cheaper products, and richer people buying the complete whole home systems.
Over time, prices will come down and reliability and usefulness will go up. As the technology matures, people will get on board.