Security ranks highly among the connected home features European customers prefer Parks Associates claims, following the publishing of the IP Home Management Services in Europe report.
The report covers the European IP-based home system and management service market and examines the business models for utilities, service providers and security companies.
"Adoption of broadband and connected devices provides conduits for many new applications into the home and different means to connect with consumers," the analyst continues. "Overall, European consumers rank traditional security capabilities high among their preferred connected home features, followed by energy management features. The diversity of consumer preferences among European countries opens the market for different business models and channel strategies."
Demands vary per country-- energy management is very popular in Denmark (due to high electricity costs) while security and home monitoring are popular entry-level features in the UK.
In the UK, France, Germany and Belgium 30-40% of broadband households in rank smoke/fire detectors as the most important connected home control capability, while around 30% of German households prefer a home security company to provide home monitoring equipment and services.
The report also states smart meters total 30 million in Italy and 4m in Sweden, and will exceed 20m in the UK and Spain and 30m in France and Germany by 2020.
Service providers offer home control solutions to consumers either directly or through a partner (such as utility or OEM)-- for instance Deutsche Telekom has energy-specific service platforms with Miele, Samsung and digitalSTROM, as does Swisscom with iControl Networks for home automation and monitoring deployments.
