This article originally appeared in the August 2024 issue of Security Business magazine. Don’t forget to mention Security Business magazine on LinkedIn and @SecBusinessMag on Twitter if you share it.
Smart home services offer enhanced protection, convenience, and peace of mind, making them valuable add-ons for security companies. They give integrators both immediate revenue from additional gear and labor, and the opportunity to integrate the security system more deeply into customers’ daily lives.
New data from Parks Associates reveals that the more smart home devices a user has, the more likely they are to own a security system. In her June “The Smart Money” column in Security Business, Parks Associates’ Jennifer Kent encourages integrators to “inspire these middle-market buyers to acquire their next 3-5 smart home devices.”
The implication is that smart home devices are not just a lucrative system add-on; instead, they are a catalyst that evolves casual consumers into hot prospects. This suggests that integrators have the opportunity to lead with smart home solution sales to form a relationship with customers who will purchase more sophisticated solutions and services over time.
Consumers want the flexibility to choose devices from multiple manufacturers, and they need support. By offering ongoing maintenance and upgrades, security companies can build lasting relationships with customers. This loyalty deepens customer value over time.
Meet the Connected Consumer
Smart device adoption continues to make steady inroads: By 2027, eMarketer predicts that 46 percent of American households will have at least one smart device. It is especially interesting where that growth is happening – not in the luxury market, where home automation is already widely adopted, but in the mid- and mass markets.
CEDIA’s 2023 Professional Smart Home Market Analysis found that a sharply increasing percentage of custom electronics integrators – who traditionally serve elite clientele – are now serving the broad market. That’s a sea change indicating real economic opportunity. But what are these connected consumers looking for when they adopt smart devices?
Deloitte’s most recent Connected Consumer survey ranks increased safety and security and remote monitoring capabilities as the two leading ways smart devices improve users’ lives.
Notably, though users broadly agree on what they want from a smart home, they’re not at all aligned on how to get it. Both Parks and Deloitte find that no one device category is adopted by more than 30 percent of users, and Deloitte’s research further finds that most users haven’t even settled on a single platform like Alexa or Google to unite their devices.
Consumers have widely varied smart device needs and adopt new devices on an ad hoc basis. Turnkey smart home kits with a limited set of supported devices don’t align with consumer behavior. Consumers have a world of choice when it comes to selecting new smart home devices and want solutions that unify and enhance their existing ones.
Consumers Have Stuff; They Need Services
The real key to success in this arena is in-depth support and integration for the devices consumers organically want. Off-the-shelf Alexa-compatible devices and Google Home devices have come a long way but getting them to work together is difficult. This presents an opportunity for security integrators.
Though consumers don’t necessarily shop based on device compatibility, Deloitte finds that nearly 80 percent of them think device interoperability is important. If an integrator can connect and automate users’ existing devices and empower them to add new devices at will – that’s real value. If the integrator can help keep those devices working together over time, weathering firmware updates and software releases, they earn loyal customers for life.
The Security Angle
Interestingly, while security is the biggest benefit of smart home automation, it is also the biggest barrier to smart device adoption. People love the increased physical safety and security they get from IoT systems, but they worry that they may end up sacrificing their digital security by adding so many devices to their networks.
They are not wrong. Smart home devices can experience thousands of hacking attempts per week, and Deloitte’s research shows that the more smart devices a consumer has, the more likely they are to experience a breach. Seventy-five percent of consumers agree they should be doing more to protect their smart devices and networks, but many people feel at a loss.
This is where security integrators come in. As experts in both physical and network security, they can help users set up proper network security measures and select IoT networking technologies that aren’t as vulnerable to Internet-based attacks.
Help them understand how security and IoT systems use, store, and share both anonymized and identifiable data, as well as the risks of re-identification from cross-referenced data. This guidance will empower your customers to select smart devices and subsystems that align with their vision for a dream home without giving up privacy.
Security integrators are uniquely positioned to offer what the majority of consumers really want from a smart home – convenient, reliable physical security, without sacrificing digital security. Integrators need not compete with Amazon; instead, offer what people can’t easily “add to cart” online: customization, interoperability, automation, and service.
Helping smart device owners become smart homeowners makes them exponentially more likely to become security clients in the future – enabling integrators to build a sustainable, ongoing relationship with new prospects in the here and now.
