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People Think Smart Home Tech is Too Expensive (usatoday.com)

Posted by msmash on from the beyond-my-budget dept.

According to new research commissioned by smart home software and hardware brand Wink, 34 percent of Americans believe it would cost $5,000 or more to turn their home into a smart home. An article on USA Today adds: It's a stark contrast from Wink's real world user data: Of the company's 2.7 million users, the average person starts with just 4 smart devices, and spends about $200. The information comes from a report Wink has dubbed their Smart Home Index, released today, in which more than 2,000 U.S. adults were surveyed by a team at Harris Poll. Aside from the cost misconception, a few other key insights rose to the top. For example, the adoption rate disparities across gender lines and income lines have almost disappeared. 43 percent of connected device buyers are now women, and 20 percent of all households with income under $50,000 per year have purchased a connected product. Of those that did purchase a smart home device, energy savings was the most frequently cited reason for doing so, followed by security. Only 33 percent of buyers expressed a desire to monitor or control their homes while away.

4 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. think by turkeydance · · Score: 3, Insightful

    or know?

  2. Don't Forget Complex by Thelasko · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's something to be said for simplicity. The more I read about IoT vulnerabilities and clunky smart home devices, the less I want one.

    There is elegance in simplicity. If I want to make something smarter, I put it on a timer.

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  3. Re:People think Smart Home Tech is too Unnecessary by TWX · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Back when I was a teenager I played with X10 stuff a bit. As a teenager it seemed cool that I could turn lamps and radios on and off through my computer.

    Then the novelty wore off and I realized that at least for those things in the room with me, controlling them remotely didn't matter, and for those few things that could benefit me to be controlled in some fashion, it wasn't in the cards.

    I'll admit, having a system that can tell when i'm leaving work in order to turn the water heater back on that's been off since the morning, or could turn on the air conditioning or heat woul be pretty cool, but on the other hand I leave work at roughly the same time every afternoon so it wouldn't really help all that much. Perhaps something to determine if I'm home and use occupancy to keep these systems from being idled would be handy, but on the other hand I can just go flip a switch on the water heater timer and it's on again, and I can turn down my thermostat easily enough on my own.

    The one bit of kit that would actually be useful to me would be an HVAC thermostat that didn't require me to switch between heat and cooling modes for the heatpump. Just let me set upper and lower thresholds and have it automatically switch between modes. That requires no computing outside of the termostat itself.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  4. Re:People think Smart Home Tech is too Unnecessary by geekmux · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...Then the novelty wore off...

    Sums up the entire value-add right there.

    Also sounds a lot like 99.9% of smartphone apps in existence today that get downloaded and used once...