Almost two-thirds of home security system owners believe wireless signals from their system are encrypted, though the practice isn't industry-standard, Parks Associates reported Wednesday, saying 64 percent of U.S. broadband households are concerned about security and privacy when using connected devices. "The reality falls shorts of their expectations regarding the security of their home security system," said analyst Tom Kerber. The National Institute of Standards and Technology developed a voluntary cybersecurity framework (see 1804170042), noted the research firm. The framework describes voluntary standards, “but it is only a matter of time before mandatory cybersecurity standards are enacted,” Parks said.
With truck rolls still bedeviling some industries serving broadband customers, systems integrators told a ProSource conference last week in San Antonio they're trying to keep customers and their electronics always connected. ProSource CEO David Workman said it costs at least $200 when a technician visits a user. For the recurring monthly revenue many tech integrators seek, wireless can monitor household networks for problems, the event was told. Greg Simmons, co-founder of new service company Parasol, an offshoot of integration company Eagle Sentry, said customers also value the quicker response: "Instead of you having a problem Friday night and us getting there Tuesday morning to take care of it -- and they’ve missed Game of Thrones and they’re furious -- we now are handling it that much faster.” OneVision Resources CEO Joseph Kolchinsky said in five years, “every one of the clients you want to do business with” will be paying monthly for monitoring. That will extend to personal electronics, including smartphones, Kolchinsky envisioned.
Comcast Xfinity is sponsoring the CNET Smart Home in San Francisco, a demonstration facility to be used to teach consumers how to benefit from smart home devices, cable and high-speed internet, said the companies Thursday. The 2,952 square-foot single-family home, with a one-year lease, won’t be open to the public but will be used by CNET for creating “explainer videos” based on an Xfinity internet backbone and used by Xfinity for marketing events, a Comcast spokesman told us Friday. A goal is to let consumers know the smart home “is not theoretical; it’s here,” he said. Xfinity Home partners Lutron and ecobee are featured with Xfinity devices, he said. On whether the cable ISP is looking to host similar homes elsewhere, the spokesman said it would be open to the idea and could be a platform for other cities. Comcast’s Xfinity stores are being redesigned to showcase all its services and related products, including mobile, in stations with product specialists.
Times are "very good" for audio/video retailers and integrators, said ProSource CEO David Workman in a Wednesday state of the business address in San Antonio, but "we live in a cyclical business, and times can sometimes turn." ProSource Chairman Murray Huppin, who owns Huppin’s and OneCall, said in an opening address that “tariffs and trade wars loom on the horizon.” In a news media update, Workman said strong growth projections for ProSource would be derailed by tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on electronics. “That’s probably the one wild card that none of us could predict,” he said. Dealers cited tariffs on consumer electronics leading to “massive price increases,” he said. Price increases on chipsets would likely “ripple up into virtually everything we’re selling,” he said. "China is the No. 1 point of manufacture for everything we sell.”
Amazon's Fire TV platform was the apparent winner, Roku TV the loser, in Wednesday's announcement that Amazon will partner with Best Buy in an exclusive multiyear arrangement to sell Insignia- and Toshiba-branded Fire TV Edition smart TVs. The companies said Fire TV Edition smart TVs, with Alexa voice control, will be available exclusively via the retailer. The newly designed smart TVs might appeal to cord cutters. “Connect any HD antenna and instantly use Alexa to search for and watch broadcast TV,” they said, along with streaming content from Netflix, Prime Video, HBO, PlayStation Vue and Hulu, among others.
Worldwide spending on video, games and music is expected to reach $439 billion this year, up 17 percent from 2017, Futuresource reported Thursday. Subscription VoD from services including Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Netflix are “rapidly dominating” the home entertainment sector, accounting for nearly half of last year’s $42 billion spent on DVD, Blu-ray, electronic sell-through, VoD and SVoD video, it said. That's up from 13 percent of home video spending in 2013. The growth trend will continue, Futuresource said, with SVoD expected to be 70 percent of home video spending by 2021, driven by households adopting multiple services.
FCC certification for Energous wireless charging technology clears the way for manufacturers to design “robust products” that can be waterproof and free of charging ports, a company spokeswoman emailed us. The WattUp near-field transmitter, running at 900 MHz, was certified under Part 18 post-Underwriters Laboratory testing, the company said Monday. The near-field transmitters are a charging solution for small consumer electronics, the spokeswoman said. In December, the FCC OK'd the firm's mid-field transmitter (see 1712270024), which also operates in the 900 MHz band. A fitness band with WattUp receiver technology could come with a near-field transmitter, enabling contact-based charging without a wired connection, the representative said. A mid-field transmitter, she said, can be incorporated into a computer monitor or smart speaker, “where you could then charge that fitness band at-a-distance, without having to take it off your wrist.”
Voice technology came a long way since Bell Labs developed the first speech recognition technology in 1952, said Alex Capecelatro, CEO of Josh.ai, a voice-based home automation company, at the Home Technology Specialists of America Tuesday in Orlando. Challenges remain. Set-top boxes don’t send out status, so if someone asks to watch ESPN, the box won’t give a success message “because [manufacturers'] argument is they just have the TV do the thing you ask for,” he said. Without such a message, a TV won’t turn on automatically, and “the system’s not going to be intelligent,” he said: Josh.ai is working to integrate with a cable company. Security vulnerabilities when information is processed in the cloud could lead to hacking. “There’s no such thing as a non-hackable home or a non-hackable solution,” Capecelatro said: “Unfortunately, that’s a reality we need to address” as an industry.
Amazon shares fell another 1 percent Tuesday before rebounding, and some analysts said they saw the recent drop from a 52-week high of $1,617.54 (see 1804020050) as a buy opportunity. Shares wound up closing 1.5 percent higher Tuesday at $1,392.05. President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday: “I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy. Amazon should pay these costs (plus) and not have them bourne [sic] by the American Taxpayer. Many billions of dollars. P.O. leaders don’t have a clue (or do they?)!” The company didn’t comment. Last week, Trump blasted Amazon on possible antitrust grounds (see 1803290049), for “putting many thousands of retailers out of business” and for paying “little to no taxes to state & local governments.” Barclays cautioned investors in a Tuesday research note about “potential regulatory risk” for e-commerce providers over tax policy and shipping costs. Barclays cited the power Amazon has accrued from its business model of selling products close to bill of exchange and generating profit in other areas like Prime fees and advertising vs traditional retailers with higher cost structures. It warned of “additional scrutiny around tax collections” from third-party sellers that would weigh down growth for Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Shopify. On shipping cost inflation risk, Barclays said every 15 percent bump in USPS shipping rates for the last mile would wipe out 13 percent of Amazon retail operating income “assuming the company doesn't come up with another low-cost option to replace USPS.” The analyst firm doesn’t see antitrust as a viable path for regulators “given the low market share.” Barclays remains bullish long term on e-commerce but isn’t expecting much from the sector “until some of these sentiment headwinds abate and the conversation moves back toward innovation.” The Washington Post, which is owned personally by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, reported that government officials have told Trump that USPS profits from contracts with Amazon. Trump claimed over the weekend that USPS loses an average of $1.50 for every package it delivers for Amazon.
Perfecting the autonomous vehicle (AV) is 99 percent of the way there, “but the last 1 percent takes 99 percent of the time,” said Karl Iagnemma, CEO of Massachusetts Institute of Technology AV software spinoff NuTonomy, on a panel on technical, economic and policy obstacles to AVs at Tuesday’s 2018 Automotive Forum sponsored by J.D. Power and the National Automobile Dealers Association.