“The way we work and live will change quite dramatically,” is how Stuart Sikes characterizes the impact of connected and smart home. Speaking at CONNECTIONS™ 16, Sikes points out that things such as voice control are removing the friction of interacting with technology and associated products. As further evidence of how things like voice control makes it easier to use smart home features,

“Parks Associates’ research finds that 44% of U.S. broadband households have used voice control functions on at least one of their connected platforms, including 64% of heads of household ages 18-24.“

In the above interview, Sikes discusses the emerging ecosystems, such as Amazon’s Alexa, and the window for competing ecosystems to make an impact. [added 12/12/16 – Google’s recent announcement of Conversation Actions, which allows developers to build bots, devices, applications and services that use natural language for two-way interaction, offers evidence of the competition for both consumer and developer attention.]

He points out that digital home platforms cannot afford to ignore “hero” products that consumers want. He suggests that there is a balance between curation and ensuring that customers do have the choice that they want.

Still, Sikes believes there is a market opportunity with price sensitive customers, as pointed out by Kevin Meagher of ROC-Connect in this interview. Regardless, the market will continue to evolve as vendors improve their ability to solve customers needs.

Note, IoT, smart-home and the human-machine interface will be some of the topics at the CONNECTIONS™ Summit.