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About Connected@Home Forum
CABA's Connected@Home Conference, for the last two years,
featured discussions and high-quality information about
innovative connected home technologies that provide entertainment,
data, voice communications and home management systems over
broadband and other infrastructures. This event will now
become a Forum, to share leading-edge connected home research.
In July 2006, the Continental
Automated Buildings Association (CABA), a not-for-profit
industry organization that promotes advanced technologies
for the automation of home and buildings, integrated the
operations of the Internet Home Alliance. The Alliance is
a cross-industry network of leading companies engaged in
collaborative research to advance the connected home space.
The Alliance's research projects enable participating companies
to gain important insights into the connected home space
and leverage those insights into viable new business opportunities.
CABA will continue to pursue the work of the Council through
its new Internet Home Alliance Research Council (IHA-RC),
which will also encompass wide ranging commercial research
projects. For more information about the Council, go to
http://www.caba.org/iha.
In addition to a full day of
activities, two major IHA research projects will be shared
with the industry. They are:
Home Networking Study
Home network adoption has been on the rise in recent years
in the U.S. This growth has been fueled by emerging wireless
technologies, the ability to share an Internet connection
and the popularity of digital entertainment formats. The
Alliance's 2005 State of the Connected Home survey indicates
that about one-in-four online households have a home PC
network (defined as a connection between multiple PCs or
a laptop computer and a wireless router).
However, the pace of home network adoption now appears to
be slowing, according to the 2005 survey. With early adopters
already on board, home networking technology now must appeal
to less technically inclined, mass market consumers. These
users tend to be unmotivated by - or unaware of - home networking
applications, and my be daunted by the need to choose and
set up the necessary equipment and software.
Even early adopters have been
slow to add systems such as home control and security to
their networks due to complexity and cost. However, current
industry efforts to develop plug-and-play technologies that
enable disparate devices to communicate via a common platform
may begin to change that. And the proliferation of portable
digital media products such as media players has created
a slew of potential additions to the home network environment.
In light of the current state
of home networking, CABA's Internet Home Alliance Research
Council sought a comprehensive understanding of drivers
and barriers to adoption, from purchase through installation,
use and expansion. To address the study's objectives, qualitative
interviews were conducted with channel members (primarily
system integrators and installers), and consumer focus groups
were held.
Digital Youth
Families today have a wide variety of consumer electronics
and technology products at their disposal to help them get
work and homework done, communicate, and spend enjoyable
time at play. Children, in particular, are growing up in
a digital world where instant electronic access to people,
information, music, video and games is now commonplace.
IHA-RC members wanted to investigate
the world of Digital Youth aged 8-18, and their families.
Of particular interest were the family dynamics at work
in the process of learning about, shopping for, and choosing
technology products and services. Other key topics were
youths' use of technology, and which products/applications
youth find most appealing.
Zanthus conducted a Web-based
study on the topic by surveying 805 parents about their
behavior and interests of their children between the ages
of 8 and 18. The sample was representative of U.S. households
in terms of geographic region, age and gender, and household
income. Parents were between the ages of 30 to 60. In order
to understand the technology-buying process, respondents
must have purchased at least two of 18 technology products/services
in the past 12 months, and a child aged 8-18 must have had
at least a minimal degree of influence on the purchase.
The data were weighted to accurately reflect the proportion
of US households with children which are headed by two parents
(70%), single-parent females (23%), and single-parent males
(7%).
The respondent base includes
a outsized ratio of innovators and early adopters of new
home technology. Normally, 16% of consumers classify themselves
as first/early adopters, but in this study one-third fall
into the category. Three-quarters have broadband, compared
to 40% of all US households, and more than half have a home
network, compared to about 22% of all online US households.
This high concentration of first/early adopters is a result
of demographic factors (age of respondents, presence of
children) plus the requirement that households needed to
have bought two technology items recently, so that they
could easily remember and answer questions about the process.
Therefore the findings are representative of households
with youth aged 8-18, with recent technology purchases,
but they are not generalizable to all US households.
Products/services investigated
included the following: desktop computers, laptop computers,
Media Center PCs, external hard drivers, printers (color
laser, all-in-one inkjet, standard color inkjet, snapshot
photo), broadband Internet access, digital cameras, mobile
phones (for use by youth aged 8-18), MP3 players and iPods,
satellite radio equipment, HDTV, DVR subscriptions, Xbox
360 consoles, handheld game devices and subscriptions to
an online game service.
CABA's IHA Research Council
is well positioned to offer this exciting event. This executive
forum will serve as a catalyst to spur discussion and debate
on the evolution of the connected consumer at home.
Targeted participants for
the Connected@Home Forum 2007 include:
• Senior & Middle Management
• Product Managers
• Product Developers
• Technologists
• Service Providers
• Business Development Executives
• Retail
• Content Developers
• Content Providers
• Software Developers
• Home and Smart Community Developers
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