Half of UK consumers under 44 would consider buying smart-home devices, survey

Purchase of a home hub likely to get the market rolling says CP Consulting

According to a recent survey of 500 UK consumers aged between 25 and 44 by CP Consulting, almost half (47.6 per cent) would consider purchasing a smart-home (or connected-home) device within the next 12 months.

Top of the list of potential purchases came smart thermostats, such as Google's Nest (42.73 per cent), but that was closely followed by a smart home hub (42.27 per cent) and connected lighting (40.45 per cent).

Only about 20 per cent have purchased smart-home device to date.

These results are probably indicative of what is already on the market - Nest and other smart thermostats have been available for a few years now. They also fit well with the key perceived benefit - saving on energy bills - which was mentioned by 49.5 per cent of respondents. "Control my home while I am away" and "Increase the safety of our home" were picked by 47.7 and 41.9 per cent, respectively.

Many Internet of Things (IoT) applications - including many smart-home ideas - are at a very early stage, but in the field of energy management there has already been progress. "Where people are spending is in the energy use cases. These are the ones that are getting funded," Raj Pai, global head products and marketing at AutoGrid, said recently.

Standing in the way of smart-home adoption is not the fear about security and hacking that so besets many IT professionals - that came a distant third at 19 per cent - but rather the impression that the devices are too expensive (41.6 per cent), and that personal privacy might be encroached upon (22.9 per cent). The respondents were not worried about being able to install and control the devices, perhaps because the cut-off age of the sample was 44.

The average amount the respondents expected to spend on smart devices was between £100 and £300.

Carlo Palmieri, managing director of CP Consulting, said that the purchase of a home hub is most likely to lead to further purchases later as this is a key element to the connected home. Up to now most people have been purchasing individual devices rather than connecting them together.

"Consumers are confused by the vast number of products and perceive the smart-home as a nebulous term. Nonetheless, they continue to purchase individual connected-home devices - whether "smart" or not - to meet specific needs in their homes," Palmieri said.

The security of IoT will be a topic of discussion during our Enterprise Security & Risk Management Summit on 26 November. Registration is free for most delegates.