A Smarter and More Secure Home

Smart Home Consumers Indicate a Desire for Product Choice and Security

- Jennifer Kent and Tam Williams

Wi-Fi is ubiquitous in U.S. internet households, and consumers rely now more than ever on reliable, high-performing connectivity at home. However, consumers continue to experience problems with range issues and loss of connectivity. At the same time, installers are increasingly integrating Wi-Fi devices into security systems, responding to growing consumer demand for video doorbells, network cameras, and many other Wi-Fi smart home devices. Unfortunately, installers cannot provide full, end-to-end control of Wi-Fi system performance.

Installing devices on a customer’s Wi-Fi network introduces several challenges, such as reliability, bandwidth, and speed issues with the home network, affecting the performance of the security devices on the network. Additionally, dealers are called to support faulty Wi-Fi devices and networks, driving up operating costs. Maintaining users’ home networks is difficult and expensive. Further, the demand for better home networking support is on the rise, given COVID-driven lifestyle changes and work-from-home trends

Parks Associates research reports that dealers need more sophisticated products and services that make installing Wi-Fi products and maintaining security solutions with Wi-Fi components easier and more cost-effective.