New Argus Insights Report Reveals Consumers Consider ‘Do It for Me’ to be a Smarter Decision than Doing It Themselves for Smart Home Services
Los Gatos, CA (PRWEB) May 26, 2016 -- The Smart Home market holds out the possibility of being a game changer with a world of helpful promises made by HomeKit, Nest, Vivint, Philips and others. But bridging the gap in satisfaction between device and continued use through applications has been rough going. In the new Smart Home 360 report, Argus Insights reveals that there is a strong distinction between consumer perception of the apps associated with the most popular Smart Home Service Providers and MSOs (Multiple System Operators) and the apps coming with Do It Yourself (DIY) devices.
In its analysis, Argus Insights found that from over 56,000 app and device reviews, ADT and Suddenlink are the least liked of MSOs and service providers and their associated apps saw a drop in both the tone and volume of feedback over the last month, an indication that frustrated users could be moving to other providers. However, Vivint’s Sky app, Cox Communications Homelife app, Xfinity Home app and Alarm.com app all trended up, an impact of both new releases and subscriber growth.
While Vivint Sky has slipped slightly in the hearts of users in the past three months, after a drop for AT&T Digital Life and Time Warner, Vivint remains the most loved of the Service Provider apps consumers use to control their Smart Home. Xfinity Home made impressive gains after a new version of their app was released at the end of March, addressing customer issues with stability and remote access of camera feeds.
“While some people enjoy the challenge of setting up their own devices, our data shows that delight comes when the consumer is relying on service providers – at least for now – to do all the installations and connecting,” said John Feland, CEO, Argus Insights. “The continued dominance of Vivint, and significant improvements by Xfinity demonstrate the impact of proactively engaging with customers on improving the user experience.”
Additionally, scrutiny of the reviews to understand how consumers are using these apps show a significant difference between Service Providers and DIY experiences. Customers of Service Providers focus three times more on Home Security than DIY customers. DIY users have Climate Control as the top of mind usage. Interestingly, when you take out Home Security, the relative ranking of Smart Home uses is largely the same.
“We see Smart Home adoption being driven by three factors, Fear, Fun and Function. For Service Providers, the Fear factor drives Home Security as the key reason for purchase and use,” shared Dr. Feland. “DIY consumers blend Function and Fear, with Climate Control being typically the gateway Smart Home experience.”
About Smart Home 360 Report
The Smart Home 360 report, beyond the detailed analysis of Service Providers, also unpacks recent shifts in the competing Smart Home Ecosystems, including Nest Weave, Apple HomeKit, Icontrol Networks, Samsung SmartThings and others. In addition to analysis of the market momentum of each of the major smart home categories, such as Smart Thermostats, Security Cameras, Smart Lighting and more, the Report also includes ranking of the top device brands in each category. Exploration on the performance of Smart Home Device Brands and the apps that control them, including results on Philips, Nest, Netgear, Amazon and more. Finally, a breakdown of the US Retail Channel performance considers which retail channel is communicating the value of Smart Home and is backing up that value proposition with compelling digital marketing content in social media.
The Argus Insights Smart Home 360 Report is available for purchase here.
About Argus Insights & Methodology
Argus Insights is a new type of market research company. Recognizing that companies are constantly striving to achieve and sustain market fit in the face of competitive threats and shifting customer preferences, Argus Insights continuously monitors and analyzes millions of consumer touchpoints with their patent pending technology to measure the degree to which products satisfy market demand. Through insights derived from the firm’s proprietary customer insights platform, clients take targeted actions to improve market fit and revenue performance so they can surpass the competition.
Argus Insights advises startups and Fortune 100 corporations with analytics for Design Thinking. They help executive teams build things people actually want, and engage consumers with messages that truly matter to them.
Argus Insights was founded on the fact that mindshare predicts demand. Our software platform and reports provide comprehensive visibility across a given market, showing detailed analysis of the specific attributes that determine what is delighting and disappointing actual consumers by brand and by product. Our platform is data-agnostic, but typical data sources include review data from leading retailers (star reviews) and a variety of social data (Twitter, Instagram, etc.). Our customers use our data to deliver better products & more impactful launches, create forecasts, perform competitor analysis, and track events and analyst relations.
Take action today, visit http://www.argusinsights.com/ .
Erica Zeidenberg, Hot Tomato Marketing, http://www.argusinsights.com, +1 (925) 631-0553, [email protected]
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