With the technology itself still unsettled, how consumers will buy into the smart home on a large scale remains a question. There are many companies offering a variety of approaches, from entire hub-centric platforms complete with cloud accessibility and apps to focused-point devices such as smart locks and smart lighting. These latter approaches resonate with consumers in part because they are far easier to comprehend.

Perhaps most uncertain — and fast evolving — is the retail landscape for the smart home. Most of the big retailers who offer smart-home technologies, and even those that are somewhat tangential to tech as a product category (Lowe’s, Home Depot), stake a claim to the smart home by creating focused product sections within stores, ranging from basic end caps to full-fledged areas with dedicated staff who can walk consumers through products and answer questions. But despite all of this effort, the complexity of the smart-home concept and consumers’ uncertainty over the value proposition is proof that retailers have a long way to go before the puzzle of smart home retail is solved.

It’s an important battle that represents potentially tens of billions of dollars. This report will examine the smart-home retail environment and how it matches up against current consumer sentiment.

Key findings include:

• Currently consumers don’t see a compelling need for smart-home technology, which means that retailers must provide significant market education.
• Because of consumer uncertainty and the lack of a clear leader in this space, most large national technology and home improvement retailers are moving fast to establish a foothold in the market.
• The approaches taken by the big retailers are widely varied, but each represents a significant investment that often taps into a given company’s core strengths.

Thumbnail images courtesy of iStock/Getty Images.

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• It’s the first new hardware product category introduced by the company since the iPad, and the first in the post-Jobs era.
• Many have been waiting for Apple to create a validation for the category.
• The Apple Watch is important for Apple strategically beyond wearables, as it creates entry points into health, smart home, payments and other fast-growing market sectors that are key areas for future revenue growth.

We surveyed one hundred Gigaom readers the day after launch to gauge their reactions to the introduction. They were pretty overwhelmingly positive. Their responses included:

• Sixty-four percent thought the Apple Watch will revolutionize the category
• They rated physical features like its overall look and variety of models and bands as a little more important than its haptic/touch features or user interface innovations.
• They deemed its new payment/wallet features and its app developer platform as slightly stronger competitive differentiators than health/fitness, model variety, or new communication features.
• Gigaom readers said the need for an iPhone to access most features (39 percent) outweighed “too expensive”  (18 percent) as its biggest hurdles to wide adoption.

But even with the new features, the trademark Apple design innovation, and all the excitement, there are still some questions ahead for the Apple Watch. It’s unclear if smartwatches – even one from Apple – are a mass-market item as a $349 companion device to an iPhone.

Thumbnail image courtesy of: iStock/Thinkstock.

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Thread offers enough compelling advantages in the long term that we will see a significant portion of the market evaluate the technology and ultimately adapt it into their products. But while Thread has done as much as possible to inoculate itself against resistance to embracing a new standard, it will require the following to catch on:

• Flawless delivery on interoperability. Thread’s use of 802.15.4 PHY/MAC and its promise of a single, unified standard profile could walk through the door that Zigbee left open.
• Strong support from smart-home hardware and service players. They must be convinced of the need for new technology but there’s still room for a modern offering that can deliver on requirements for long-distance, multipoint mesh networks, IP, and low energy.
• Easy deployment on existing radios. One of Thread’s promises is that it will work with existing 802.15.4 silicon, so it would be a big advantage if it can be deployed with a field-software upgrade for existing radios.
• More converts among chip companies. Thread’s backers include Google/Nest, Samsung, ARM, Freescale, and Silicon Labs. The latter are both Zigbee chip providers, but Thread will need more switchovers to demonstrate momentum.

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Key implications of the announcement include:

• Most connected-device makers without an allegiance to a proprietary smart-home system or one of Apple’s competitors (i.e., Google or Nest) will incorporate the HomeKit API and protocol into their existing solutions.

• In the short term, Apple’s entry could have a beneficial impact on carriers as overall consumer awareness increases. In the longer term the impact of HomeKit on service providers could be mixed. If HomeKit and a broader Apple smart-home effort ultimately enable a more simple way to manage the smart-home experience, service providers could see less of a demand for managed home networks.

• DIY smart-home companies like SmartThings, Revolv, Belkin, and Staples could see a mixed impact. The end result will likely lead to increased competition from low-cost clone smart-home system providers.

Feature image courtesy Flickr user Mike Fisher

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Innovation in user and technology interfaces has not stopped with touch. Over the past five years, technologies that utilize voice, motion, and even biosensing have started to make their way to market, each with multiple variations at different stages of maturity. Looking broadly across the various forms of user and technology interfaces, a few overarching trends can be identified:

Continuous evolution toward less intrusive, near-invisible interfaces. Some observers correctly argue that user-interface design has focused too heavily on making user interfaces disappear completely, which can lead to confusion and less efficient interaction experiences with technology. But it’s safe to say that the trajectory of current interface evolution is one moving toward interfaces being less intrusive and less visible.

New interfaces enable new types of applications and technology experiences. By integrating completely new ways to interface with technology, many existing application categories are reinvented and new ones come to life. For example, consider how voice is used as an authentication and command interface for the internet of things (IoT), or for wearables or smart home.

Enterprises will experience BYOI (bring your own interface). Over the past decade, the enterprise-technology market has had to grapple with the invasion of consumer technologies ranging from Wi-Fi to cloud storage to the iPhone. With consumers beginning to experience new ways to interact with technology through consumer-facing entertainment, IoT, and other technologies, we can expect them to begin to demand and, in some cases, bring their own technologies that will change how they interface with technology at work.

Interfaces lead to new ways to experience technology. A confluence of new technologies such as big data, cloud, anticipatory computing, and social media are combining with new interfaces to create entirely new interaction experiences with technology that are continuous, contextual, and anticipatory.

This report examines the maturity of four interfaces and their corresponding markets: touch, voice, motion, and bio/cognition technologies. While touch interfaces are the most mature, motion-sensing technologies in areas like 3D modeling, IoT, and wearables will grow the most in the next three to five years. Meanwhile, in the long term, we will begin to see true biosensor-enabled wearables that can track a person’s health and activity, as well as use this information as a way to act as an interface to other smart systems.

Feature image courtesy Flickr user indigo_girl

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Over the past decade the show has transformed from being one focused on traditional consumer electronics to being the largest tech show in the U.S., setting each year’s technology agenda in many categories. CES 2014 was no different, giving us a pulse on the defining trends in technology and showing us the 2014 road maps for some of the biggest companies in the world.

Below are some key themes highlighted at this year’s CES.

Wearables was perhaps the hottest overall category, with hundreds of new devices on display. The smartwatch sector had its own pavilion. Meanwhile close to 10 companies showed some kind of smart glass variant, and many fitness-tracking and health-related wearables were on display. And, of course, after CES, Google announced its smart contacts offering, which could mean a hot new category for the coming year.

The internet of things and the smart home were the most pervasive themes of the show: Everything is now connected, from basic white goods to wearables to cars and just about everything else in our lives. Ingredient technology providers like Qualcomm, Intel, and Broadcom showed up with big plans for IoT, while hundreds of companies had products that played into the broader IoT theme. The smart home was the most visible segment of IoT, as everything from basic point solutions like connected light bulbs to service provider smart home platforms and retail offerings like Staples Connect were on display. Google’s announcement of its Nest acquisition happened just two days after the show’s conclusion, which only put an exclamation point on the event.

3D printing’s booth space and buzz increased almost tenfold this year. For consumers, 3D printing is still a few years off because the big players in this space don’t yet offer affordable-enough products (3D Systems debuted its first $1,000 3D printer at the show). Low-cost players offering variants of RepRap-based printers probably don’t have the scale or support to grow the market. All that said, it looks like the tech world has embraced 3D printing as an exciting new category.

Robotics has been a staple at CES for some time. Interesting takes on play-centric robots were plentiful at the show. Meanwhile the high profile of drones was perhaps best illustrated by the CEO of Parrot (one of the biggest makers of drones), Henri Seydoux, occupying the cover of i3, the glossy magazine published by CES-producer CEA.

4K and the smart TV are proof that the TV industry’s future is staked on screens becoming more connected and smarter with higher fidelity. 4K has come a long way from last year, if the products announced indicate anything. And smart TV product platform shakeups were plentiful, with LG showing off webOS and Roku and Mozilla also debuting new platform initiatives.

Connected cars were bigger than ever at this year’s CES. Audi and GM announced 4G-fueled car models. Google announced a new alliance to push Android and self-driving cars.

The post A look back at this year’s CES and what it means for tech in 2014 appeared first on Gigaom.

The continued miniaturization of computing, advances in battery life, the ever-lower price points for advanced screen technology, and the explosion in better and ever-smarter sensor technology have created what looks to be the perfect storm for wearables across a number of categories, making way for huge strides in the coming years in both feature and platform innovation.

However, while there is significant investor and technology-innovator interest in wearables, the general public is only beginning to understand what the disparate categories are and how each could be used to possibly better their lives. The most well understood category today is that of fitness bands, thanks in large part to scrappy companies such as Fitbit (see disclosure) and Jawbone who have created fitness monitoring wearables. However, even the fitness category is likely below 5 percent market penetration.

Expecting wearables marketing to explode in 2014, we surveyed approximately 180 Gigaom readers, and asked them to tell us some of the hurdles for the wearable category, which types of wearables they were most excited about, and also to give us some of their open-ended opinions on wearables.

What were the top-level results?

• Challenges ahead. When asked what potential challenges lie ahead for smartwatches and smartglasses, a significant number of our respondents felt both categories had yet to see a must-have application that would drive mass adoption. The majority (53 percent) of respondents also felt that the awkwardness of smartglass technology could hurt adoption long-term.
• New boss, same as the old boss. When we asked our respondents which companies they expected to have the most long-term success in wearables, the names were familiar. Google and Apple nosed out Samsung and buried the startups and Microsoft.
• Familiarity breeds expectations of success. The most widely owned wearable among our respondents was fitness bands (37 percent of respondents). Perhaps not coincidentally, our respondents felt fitness wearables would perform best among all the categories over the next five years.

Disclosure: Fitbit is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of Gigaom. Om Malik, founder of Gigaom, is also a venture partner at True.

Thumbnail image courtesy of flickr user Hosam Al-Hwid.

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The IoT is regularly associated with home automation; however, the market for home energy management systems and smart appliances, which many expected to track the rollout of smart meters and to give rise to truly connected homes, have both failed to take off. Today, many of these products are still involved in small pilot programs. The arrival of a number of glitzy cloud-enabled gadgets like Belkin’s WeMo line and the Nest Learning Thermostat could accelerate things rapidly. These devices, however, aren’t truly IoT; they are connected to the internet but remain isolated from one another.

For the smart home to ignite the IoT, home automation software platform vendors must provide open APIs. SmartThings and future open-API platforms could be the disruptive players that encourage a tidal wave of interconnected things.

Key findings from our analysis include:

• Do-it-yourself (DIY) kits and high-end luxury installations are creating competition across previously separated home automation sectors. This, coupled with cloud-based services and general-purpose controllers built on apps, is driving much growth. Meanwhile, service providers like telecommunications companies (telcos) and utilities are raising category awareness with low-cost offerings.

• Extensible software platforms from the likes of Alarm.com, iControl, and AlertMe mean that service providers can introduce new services to end customers over time. A home security-focused solution, like Comcast’s XFINITY Home package, easily can be extended to incorporate home energy management or home health capabilities. Open-API platforms would accelerate this extensibility and enable even more competition.

• Currently the largest segment, custom-designed smart home systems will grow at only a 7-percent rate, compounded annually, to $2.2 billion in 2017. DIY kits will grow much faster but still only reach $200 million in annual sales by then. In contrast, connected home systems will explode from a $300-million base to $1.5 billion in 2017.

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While the event was fairly light in terms of details around the gaming aspects of the console — Microsoft is keeping some of its power dry for E3 in June —  the company was fairly comprehensive when discussing the new console’s media and entertainment capabilities.

In order to better understand how the Xbox One is being received by the larger tech community, we surveyed GigaOM’s own readership on the new offering.

We asked about respondents to give their assessments of some of the new features, including the new Kinect, the hypervisor/dual OS, the new overlay UI/set-top integration, and increased emphasis on cloud computing.

So which new feature of the Xbox One was chosen to have the biggest impact? According to our survey, the Kinect, with nearly half (45 percent) of respondents ranking it as a potentially significant differentiator. With a newly refreshed Kinect included with every new Xbox One console and a 10x improvement in sensory power, I agree with our respondents. In my opinion, such a jump could unlock potential new game and user-interaction scenarios around navigation, advertising, and entertainment.

One feature our respondents were not as high on was the hypervisor/dual-OS, with only 35 percent seeing it as a big deal. This is not all that surprising since it’s mainly an “under-the-hood” improvement, but my feeling is it’s a fairly significant technical leap for Microsoft, and it could a big competitive weapon against Sony  (assuming that company doesn’t announce something similar at E3). By using a hypervisor which runs both a gaming and Windows 8 kernel for apps and other types of programs, Microsoft can develop both the gaming and entertainment/apps platforms at its own pace and not be held back by the other. It also allows new virtualized operating environments to be spun up while maintaining the core stability of the baseline Xbox OS.

We also asked our respondents about their overall perception of the health of the gaming console market as we enter this new generation. With all the changes over the past seven years — the arrival of tablets and the rise of cloud-centric gaming — you’d think our tech-savvy audience would be fairly down on the consoles, but more than half (57 percent) felt fairly positive about the prospects for the new console generation. The other 42 percent felt the market was going to contract, with 12 percent telling us the console market was a dinosaur on the brink of extinction.

We also asked our respondents to pick a winner for the coming generation, as well as which company they felt had the best chance to capture the digital living room in the coming years. All of this data and our analysis can be found in the following report, as well as select open-ended responses about the console battle and the future direction of the market by many of our readers.

Note: Names from all open-ended responses in this report are not revealed, for the purpose of privacy and anonymity. 

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And for the past few decades, there has been no shortage of people trying to pack smarts into watches. From basic calculator watches to Seiko’s RC series and more recently IBM’s attempt to create a Linux watch, the dream has stayed alive, even if it has been more wishful thinking than commercial success.

But all of that may be set to change soon. With the continued miniaturization of technology, the rise of flexible software frameworks, and the growing interest in technologies such as biomonitoring and location-based services, the smart watch is fast becoming technology’s next big thing.

One of the reasons for this interest is the continued maturation of other mobile platforms. While smartphones remain new profit drivers, companies like Apple, Samsung, LG, and Google see smart watches as a potential new growth category.

At the same time, the category has been somewhat validated by the highly successful early reception of the Pebble Watch, which came to fruition after becoming the most successful gadget launch on Kickstarter.

Because of all of this, we decided to survey our own smart readers about the smart watch market to get a sense of the category and an early indication for potential competitors, price points, features, and, of course, demand.

So what did we find out? In brief:

• The early rumor mill and brand awareness seem to have influenced our respondents’ thinking. Of all the potential smart watch makers we named — Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft, and LG — the only two that have actually made anything resembling a smart watch registered lowest on the respondents’ radars. On the other hand, Apple and Samsung are seen as the most likely to release a smartphone. Google — which has filed for patents for smart watch designs — was in the middle of the pack in terms of respondents’ expectations for a product.
• Quantified self — and biometric-sensing apps — topped the want list. We asked our respondents what functionality they would want, and the runaway winner was biometric sensors. That’s not surprising if you consider that much of the recent momentum for wearables has been driven by companies like Fitbit and even Pebble, which makes a crowdfunded smart watch that has a health and fitness sensing tilt.
• About one-third of our respondents were likely early adopters, others tended to wait and see. We asked if our respondents would buy a smart watch, and roughly one in three had it on their short list. Fifty percent had the product filed under “unlikely,” though we believe that’s normal for new product categories that consumers don’t quite understand or see a need for yet.
• Price points are currently expected to be low, which should result in some interesting decisions by vendors. Currently our respondents see palatable prices at below $200, which might present a challenge for vendors like Apple and Samsung, which tend to come out with premium pricing for newer products. What makes this a potentially interesting challenge is the fact that there might not be any carrier subsidization (though that could obviously change).

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