Comcast, Cox Targeting Smart Home Amid Privacy, Other Challenges
BURLINGAME, Calif. -- With smart home awareness low and stakes for recurring service revenue high, Comcast and Cox executives spoke of privacy and other challenges and hopes. Comcast's Xfinity Home IoT and data services and Cox's Home Life are among such products, representatives told a Parks Associates conference this week. They predicted more sophisticated products and other enhancements.
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For IoT to reach the adoption level of the mobile era, it must be a “mélange” of connected devices, machine intelligence and ambient interfaces, such as voice, said Sridhar Solur, a Comcast senior vice president. Voice control must evolve from being communal to personal. “Anybody could walk into my home and scream the guard word and make changes,” he said. “It’s not personal.”
Voice should be enhanced by visual feedback where appropriate, Solur said. Starting a search by voice but having results displayed on a piece of glass can be much easier to understand when there’s much information, he said. “You need to understand the moods, the channels and the context,” he said. “Sometimes, voice alone is absolutely not relevant.”
The trust aspect must be considered, too, when the home’s devices are open to outside listening, Solur said. “After the guard word, all the noises in the background are also captured.” Consumers don’t necessarily know how their data is being used, shared and sold, he said. Comcast has more than 10 million voice remotes in the market, Solur said, and has integrated its experience with voice control into Xfinity Home. He cautioned of the need for “data hygiene” in the age of “data obesity.”
Cox’s Home Life looks to “bridge the divide” between pay-TV and digital home offerings, said General Manager Kristine Faulkner: Smart home is a “deeply emotional” category, touching on anxiety and relief. Faulkner said there's disparity between industry enthusiasm over technologies such as voice control and artificial intelligence and many consumers' “very deep-rooted hesitancy” about the connected home. She cited Parks data saying 26 percent of broadband households have adopted smart home products, while 15 percent expect to buy a device next year.
The cable ISP is targeting relocating homeowners, to take advantage of customers already considering cable and broadband service, Faulkner said. Some 1.75 out of 8 U.S. households move annually, she noted. Cox researched the emotions involved in moving, finding it’s “painful,” she said: Selection of home security and automation "are in parallel" with seeking broadband services post-move.