Consumer product brand loyalty could potentially prove a decisive factor when it comes to the growing smart home market, according to newly released research by Parks Associates. And that’s something operators will want to keep an eye toward as predictions from the likes of Strategy Analytics are indicating that by 2020, consumers could spend a massive $130 billion annually on smart home offerings with more than $60 billion potentially addressed by service providers.

In Parks’ new “360 Degree View Update: Connected Home Devices Deep Dive,” the research firm looks into use cases that it says could inspire cross-platform purchases. The company’s survey among smart home device owners found 44 percent of smart smoke/CO detector owners want their device to work with a smart door lock and 38 percent would want it to work with a smart thermostat.

“Anxiety over protecting loved ones and property drives up the value of interoperability with smart home safety devices,” Parks Research Analyst Brad Russel says. “Device manufacturers can leverage these use cases to develop merchandise bundles and application integrations. For example, a company could attach safety use cases to an energy use case to bundle convenience with energy savings.”

Russel further notes that consumers have yet to see the value in some interoperability scenarios, notably in energy, so those will require more outreach. He also maintains that peace of mind continues to be one of the strongest value propositions for smart home products.

Cross-platform loyalty is a difficult premise, however. “Beyond Apple, ecosystem-based thinking among U.S. consumers is not natural,” Brett Sappington, senior research director at Parks Associates, explains. “Manufacturers must bridge this gap through product development and marketing that emphasize brand-specific benefits in use cases that apply across computing, mobile, and entertainment platforms.”