The ability to talk to devices to control them is something consumers are increasingly expressing a demand for, and it’s a service option that operators are keeping a firm eye toward to attract and maintain subscribers. For example, Comcast’s voice-controlled remote is a major selling point for its X1 TV platform, and the operator also upped its home security game this summer with voice control. Xfinity Home customers who have X1 can say, “Xfinity Home cameras” into their voice remote to see camera feeds on the TV or say, “Xfinity Home arm” or “Xfinity Home disarm” to control the security system from the TV.
Millennials seem to be especially comfortable with voice recognition and many consistently include it as a part of their daily lives, research shows. Parks Associates released findings in October estimating that 46 percent of U.S. Millennials with smartphones use voice recognition software, including Apple’s Siri, Google Now, or Microsoft’s Cortana. And a recent report put out by TiVo showed that 43 percent of Millennials surveyed were using voice commands with some form of device every day.
“Over 70 percent of voice recognition users are satisfied with the experience of using this solution on their smartphones, which is driving experimentation with this functionality on other platforms, including home assistants,” Parks Associates President Stuart Sikes says.
Even more market data around the topic was released this week by ABI Research, which predicts in “Home Automation Systems” that voice control smart home devices will represent almost 30 percent of smart home device spending by 2021, despite being a device category that the research firm says barely existed two years ago.
“Voice control will not only draw in new consumers to smart home functionality, but it will help transform a wide variety of new and emerging smart home services and devices into more attractive investments,” ABI Research Director Jonathan Collins, says. “The stage is set for voice control to become the heart of any smart home system.”
In terms of helping to drive the overall smart home market, voice control will play a major role so service providers will need to pay particular partner to integration, the ABI research notes. The firm forecasts that by 2021, more than 600 million smart home devices will ship annually, up from 40 million in 2015.
“The ability to integrate and extend voice control throughout the home environment will require many more smart home devices to work seamlessly with voice control offerings,” Collins concludes. “Over the next five years, a wide range of home device and appliance vendors, as well as the installer and managed smart home systems providers, will have to address how to partner to integrate with voice control platforms.”
