Commentary

Cost Outweighs Security For Buying Smart Home Devices

Smart devices such as connected thermostats may save consumers money, but the first hurdle sellers of such devices face could well be the actual cost of the device.

Cost is seen as the top challenge to get buy-in from people familiar with smart home devices.

These are among the findings of a survey of 580 U.S. adults who are familiar with Internet of Things technologies, conducted by Clutch.

Cost is seen as the top challenge for 26% of consumers familiar with smart-home devices, followed by security (21%), internet connectivity (18%), installation (11%) and maintenance (11%).

More than half (53%) of consumers say that smart home thermostats decrease utility costs and nearly a third (30%) say lowering utility costs is the primary benefit of smart plugs.

The majority (53%) of consumers currently invest in smart home devices and 18% more plan to within the next 12 months.

The main reasons for owning smart home devices are to monitor and control home devices remotely (37%), save on utilities (24%) and make devices easier to use (21%).

The smart home devices consumers are most familiar with are smart security system (68%), followed by smart lights (64%), smart thermostats (62%), smart locks (51%), smart refrigerators (46%), smart vacuums (41%) and smart plugs (38%).

Security is clearly a leader in smart home categories. The most commonly owned smart home devices are smart home security systems (50%), smart thermostats (48%) and smart lights (46%).

This may be the result of IoT marketing at work. The top three categories of devices owned are also those that consumers are most familiar with.

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