International. Home automation hardware, which is sold in standalone units, is projected to exceed 300 million units by 2020, according to Juniper Research. This represents a growth of more than 1,000% from an estimated installed base of 28 million units in 2015.
The new research, Smart Home Ecosystems & the Internet of Things: Strategies & Forecasts 2015-2020, found that "partial hardware efforts simply created isolated intelligent automation units. Open platform efforts, such as those advocated by SmartThings and Wink, have boosted the most cohesive ecosystems.
Meanwhile Deutsche Telekom's open platform, Qivicon, demonstrates a change of attitude, even for established service providers, who traditionally prefer full control over their services.
"There is light at the end of the tunnel," noted author Steffen Sorrell's research. "Open approaches certainly help move a connected home to a smarter one. However, the consumer still needs to be convinced; that there will be retail work to solve, and that is a matter of education, both of employees and consumers."
