Shifting the smart home buyer to mass-market consumers, creating increased interoperability among devices, and monetizing data are challenges, said panelists at Parks Associates' Connections conference Tuesday in Burlingame, California. About a tenth of consumer tech products today have some degree of connectivity, said Parks analyst Tom Kerber. Product ecosystems “need to be more open” to products and applications that provide a “seamless user experience,” said Kerber. Safety and security continue driving consumer interest in smart home adoption, said Parks analyst Brad Russell. About a quarter of all U.S. broadband households own at least one smart home device, Russell said, but only 12 percent own a smart home system. More than 442 million connected consumer devices will be sold in the U.S. in 2020, said Parks data released Tuesday.
Comcast added Philips Lighting to its Xfinity Home third-party product portfolio, it announced Wednesday. Adding the Philips Hue system rounds out the lighting options “for now,” with Philips joining Lutron’s Caseta switches and plug-in modules, Sengled smart LED bulbs and GE switches, Daniel Herscovici, general manager and senior vice president of Xfinity Home, told us. On the road map for iControl expansion to other markets outside of Comcast’s current cable footprint now that the acquisition is complete (see 1703090014), Herscovici said Comcast is in “active discussions” and “focused on doing things we’ve committed to.” Those include building out an IoT Center of Excellence and investing in the iControl platform “to enhance what wholesale customers can get out of the solution.”
Energous’ WattUp RF wireless charging technology is “ready for commercial deployment,” said CEO Steve Rizzone on an earnings call Wednesday. The company’s wireless charging sends contained energy via radio waves to paired devices containing matching receivers, which convert the radio waves into DC power that charges a receiver’s battery. WattUp uses Bluetooth Low Energy for communication and the 5.850 GHz-5.875 GHz band for power transmission. It expects to receive the first orders for “significant quantities” of chipsets before the end of Q2, with initial orders through Dialog Semiconductor, which bought a $10 million stake in November. Mass production of WattUp-enabled consumer products by customers will begin in Q3, with FCC certification processes for the first WattUp-enabled near-field and mid-field consumer products to coincide with the first customer shipments late this year, Rizzone said. The Q1 net loss was $12.5 million on revenue of about $575,000, the company reported. Shares closed up 14 percent on Thursday at $14.91.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau said 56 percent of U.S. adults own a smart TV. Fifty-four percent of time spent watching TV is dedicated to viewing something other than traditional linear content, IAB reported Wednesday, based on a survey of 802 U.S. online adults March 17-24. The largest share of nonlinear viewing time is spent streaming digital video, 20 percent, DVR-recorded content at 15 percent, VOD at 6 percent and downloaded video, 5 percent. ABI Research reported linear 24/7 streaming video services including DirecTV Now and YouTube TV are boosting uptake of streaming media devices, projected to reach 56 million global shipments in 2022. By then, all streaming video players will be 4K, up from 35 percent of North America shipments forecast for this year, said analyst Sam Rosen. “Video streaming services are increasingly becoming a replacement alternative" for traditional pay-TV services as operators partner with third-party over-the-top players or offer stand-alone streaming services, such as Dish Networks’ Sling TV, said analyst Khin Sandi Lynn.
Gains in Fossil’s connected watch business didn't offset other weaknesses, executives said on a Q1 call Tuesday after U.S. markets closed. Its wearables business is up 400 percent year on year, representing 7 percent of Q1 revenue. “We're now in a growing wrist device market that is 30 percent-plus bigger than that stand-alone traditional watch market,” said CEO Kosta Kartsotis. “Growth in the overall wrist device market is being fueled by connected watches." Kartsotis cited IDC forecasting that the $19 billion smartwatch business in 2016 will grow to $35 billion by 2020. Greg McKelvey, chief strategy and digital officer, said wearables and traditional watches are colliding, creating “additional channels,” new customers and a larger addressable market. Fossil stock closed down 20 percent Wednesday at $14.44.
Amazon continued its migration of the Echo product line Tuesday with an Alexa-based touch-screen videophone called Show, while introducing an Alexa-based calling and messaging feature allowing Alexa app and Echo users to send and retrieve messages via voice command. It also lowered non-Prime free shipping, now available for orders of $25 or more on eligible products, a $10 drop. Show adds to the capabilities of the Echo speaker a video touch screen that lets users view “flash briefings,” YouTube, music lyrics, connected security cameras, photos, weather forecasts, and to-do and shopping lists -- all voice-controllable by Alexa. Users can also access services including Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn and iHeartRadio. The company didn’t comment.
Pandora’s $150 million in capital funding by private equity firm KKR gives the streaming music company more time and resources to execute its expansion strategy, and “likely kills the notion of a near-term sale,” Dougherty and Co. analyst Steven Frankel wrote investors Tuesday, after Pandora’s Q1 earnings call Monday. Shareholders “will need to be patient as the company scales up its subscriber base and tries to drive the business to profitability,” Frankel said.
Comcast unveiled the xFi experience Monday, a platform controllable by mobile app, website, TV or the X1 voice remote, that’s designed to simplify home Wi-Fi networks as they become more advanced and handle more devices. With Comcast’s investment in Plume, the platform will get a boost later this year from Plume’s Adaptive WiFi technology that uses pods around the home to maximize Wi-Fi in a “self-optimizing” mesh network that’s said to adapt to a household in real time to ensure fast speeds, the company said. Chris Satchell, chief product officer-Comcast Cable, in a blog post compared the xFi to the rollout of the X1 platform. Later this year, release of “zero-configuration” xFi Wi-Fi Pods from Plume will allow Xfinity customers to create “seamless Wi-Fi for any size or shape home” by plugging pods into power outlets around the home, said Satchell. The ISP said in 2017, 86 percent of in-home broadband use will travel over Wi-Fi, and by 2020, Americans will have an average of 50 Wi-Fi connected devices in their homes.
Some 10.7 million U.S. Amazon customers have an Amazon Echo device, reported Consumer Intelligence Research Partners Monday. Awareness is 86 percent, up from 61 percent in the prior year, said CIRP, and from 20 percent as of March 31, 2105, the first full quarter following Echo's introduction. The installed base continues to expand, with 25 percent growth in Q1, said analyst Mike Levin. Meanwhile, just over 10 percent of U.S. broadband households have adopted a smart speaker with a voice assistant such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home, Parks Associates reported Monday. Parks predicts the category will ship more than 50 million units by 2020.
Universal Electronics will supply next-generation remote controls to some 140 million pay-TV subscribers into next year, said CEO Paul Arling on the company’s Q1 earnings call Thursday. Such remotes lead to higher MVPD engagement with users plus financial and other benefits, he said. Revenue in Q1 rose 7.1 percent to $161.4 million from the year-ago quarter, with Comcast revenue up by about that percentage, the company said. Universal warned of lower Q2 guidance as a large customer “burns through inventory of the company's old product” before transitioning to the next Universal remote platform. Dougherty & Co. analyst Steven Frankel cited “a material up-tick in customer churn” in the subscription-video industry, a loss of 762,000 subscriptions marking its “worst quarter ever,” and said the threat of cord-cutting is driving the next-generation user experiences being rolled out by virtually every participant in the industry. The next-gen gear switch has had "fits and starts,” he said. The stock closed 5.9 percent down Friday at $64.15.