Design

Homepod: Apple just got Nokia’d, releasing a competitive product 3 years late

Apple announced the HomePod today! Yeah! Finally Apple has a simple multiuser interface to Siri so that all of those Homekit users can engage with their Smart Home investment without whipping out the app. Except it might be too late…

Apple HomePod Announced on 5 June 2017, with availability in Dec 2017, arrives three years after Amazon Echo is launched.

Clearly meant to compete with the Amazon Echo, the HomePod is a bit late on the scene, similar to Nokia’s late response to the threat of the iPhone, something I was on the front lines of. The difference here is that Apple is the one late to the party. Amazon’s dominance in this space will be a tough nut to crack, especially with their Community Garden approach to engagement. Even though Apple has opened up Siri to developers, the momentum behind Amazon in the home assistant category is eerily similar to Apple’s domination of the Smartphone market with the launch of the iPhone in January of 2007. When we look at the mentions of Alexa vs Siri across Smart Home Device and App reviews going back to January 2016, you can see the dominance enjoyed by Amazon (to be fair, we removed all reviews of Google Home and Amazon Alexa products (including Echo, Dot and Tap) from the dataset).

Homekit saw a blip on the scope when the new version was announced in September of 2016 but lost out nearly 8:1 to Amazon Alexa over the holiday season. Question is, will the HomePod shift this graph? Will we see consumers clamoring in Holiday 2017 for HomePod when ~~pricing and~~ performance are still unknown? Priced at $349, is it worth that much for Apple fans to display their existing high end bluetooth speakers with a multiuser voice controlled DJ? Time will tell…

Apple did nail one thing. HomePod is about music first and Smart Home engagement second. This echos, pardon the pun, what we are seeing about consumer use of Google Home and Amazon Echo. Music rules the Smart Home! Plus we are also seeing an increase in demand for smart switches, sensors and lighting as these voice assistants make it easier to control these oft underlook elements of the Smart Home rather than whipping out yet another app to make sure the guest room light is off…

As with all Smart Home devices, we’ll be tracking the launch closely as December approaches. You can already see the impact of HomePod on the Smart Home narrative in our analysis of the social conversation around the market. Will Apple avoid Nokia’s fate and make a dent on Amazon’s substantial lead or will Apple become the disrupted? You can watch it unfold using the Argus Analyzer, our Real-Time IoT Ecosystem Intelligence tool!

DIY Smart Home Equipment Demand Continues to Grow But At a Slower Rate Than Earlier In 2015

Sliding into Smart Home: Growth Continues to Slow Through September

We’ve had some bold claims with regard to the Smart Home market this year. Our June analysis showed a significant drop in consumer demand for DIY equipment, mostly driven by a fall off in security cameras. Our refreshed analysis in August saw delight increase as demand slowed, a further indication that the main stream market might be leaving DIY Smart Home to the early adopters.
Along the way, we have added new sources and new products to further expand our coverage. As a result, we are delighted to share the revised results of our analysis of Consumer Smart Home demand through September 2015. While the overall demand has increased, the same slowing trend we reported on in June and August persists, with September at the lowest level of any month this year.

Where is the growth coming from? The rebranded Ring and other entry control brands have had significant gains this year while the novelty of smart light bulbs is starting to wear off. Even the darling that drove most of 2014, the humble security camera, has had only single digit demand growth for August and September. What does this mean? DIY Consumers are expanding from their first purchases of Thermostats and Cameras into other equipment to drive up their abode IQ. Though smart lighting has some the highest delight scores in our tracking of consumers, overall interest is falling as consumers are shifting from easy to install novelty products to more complex integrations.

Will the momentum of 2015 continue into 2016? Argus Insights will be at the Consumer Electronics Show in force, following soon after with our predictions for 2016. Let us know if you’d like to catch up in Vegas!

Samsung Teasing a Buy Of SmartThings, Is It a Smart Buy?

Samsung is trying to get into the Home Automation business the old fashion way, by buying their way in. This is a very different strategy than Samsung has used in other consumer markets, preferring in the past to carpet bomb consumers with a mix of marketing and blitz of products until there is only mindshare and market share left for Samsung and one or two other competitors (Smartphones anyone?). Question is, if you were Samsung and your two biggest frienemies, Apple and Google, had both laid out their Home Automation Strategy, Google with the Acquisition of Nest, Dropcam, and the establishment of a Home Automation Venture Fund, and Apple with HomeKit, a platform included in iOS 8 that is meant to bring IoT device manufacturers deep into Apple’s walled garden, what would you do? Samsung, who successfully competes against both Google and Apple, could have entered the market consistent with their historical strategies and picked a niche to initially own, then drowned the segment with products and services until consumers give up and swallow the view of Home Automation Samsung is selling. With proven prowess in more diverse devices than Apple (iFridge anyone) and a slightly schizophrenic software strategy (TouchWiz anyone?), a Home Automation software platform might have made more sense.

Instead Samsung chose to target SmartThings, a good firm to be sure, but it’s no Nest or DropCam. In fact, of the major Home Automation Brands, SmartThings is not one of the leaders and lags behind SimpliSafe, DropCam, Schlage and others. It may seem a bargain to Samsung at $200 million but much more will have to be invested to command the market position already held by DropCam and SimpliSafe.

Consumer interest in SmartThings is increasing but not enough to justify a Samsung acquisition. Other companies are doing more to move consumers into the IoT ecosystem.

In fact, SimpliSafe would have been the better acquisition target. Already a clear leader in the segment, this hero of DIY home security consumers has established a significant and growing beachhead in homes, from which they can simply (couldn’t resist) expand their capabilities for Home Automation, similar to the recent move by DropCam to include object trackers to help find your keys. Samsung Home Automation strategy needs a strong software component to craft a user experience that consumers will choose of both the upstarts and juggernauts already winning in the market.

We are tracking the front lines of Home Automation and IoT across multiple social channels. This allows Argus Insights to separate the brand promise from the product reality, identify emerging leaders, and assess the growth prospects for the market overall. Drop us a line or give us a shout if we can help you make sense of how the actual consumers, not the pundits, are shaping Home Automation and IoT for their own needs.

What did Lenovo Just Buy? Moto A Bargain at 1/4 the Price?

Motorola is now Lenovo’s latest addition to their growing collection of faltering US hardware businesses (props to Cam Dales for this observation). Google keeps most of the IP from the $12Bil acquisition they did in 2012. Lenovo adopts a handset brand with a rich history, poor present and uncertain future. After wild success in the 2000’s with their ultra cool, ultra thin handsets, Motorola failed to shift from a hardware focus to an experience focus after the iPhone was launched and has struggled ever since. After the Google acquisition, many hoped this would bring the strengths of the two companies together to finally have a company with the resources, both intellectual and financial, to compete with the iPhone walled garden of near infinite acreage. The early shared efforts produced as many fruitful results as a presidential debate: lots of noise, both hardware and software claiming victory but little real progress. The recently released Moto X and easier on the wallet Moto G were supposed to be the first real offspring of this union of the great and formerly great. As you can see below, these products have lifted perceptions of Motorola handsets in recent weeks but the brand still trails the competition, currently ranking only ahead of Nokia and HTC in terms of delighted users.

Consumer Response to Motorola Experiences in the last 20 weeks

In fact, if it wasn’t for the Moto X and Moto G, Motorola would be on par with upstart OEM’s from Asia vying for a foothold in the US market such as ZTE, Kyocera or Huawei. The Verizon branded DROID line bare attracts enough engaged consumers to even review the products.

Most Discussed Motorola Handsets in the US Market

So what is Lenovo buying? A supply chain that terminates in Texas? Two thousand patents that Google did not see a need for in the future? Carrier relationships in the US market? Engineering talent that did not leave before the last acquisition? To be fair, Motorola still turns out quality hardware as evidenced by the recent infusion of delighted Moto X and Moto G customers. Unfortunately it takes more than just solid hardware engineering to compete in the mobile market. The mass customization experiment of choosing between any one of 45 billion is paying dividends and makes Apple’s laser engraving seem like carving your initials with a butter knife in comparison.

Will Lenovo have the patience to let the current Moto brand story play itself out with consumers? Will this acquisition stall Lenovo’s own entry into the US market with their successful handsets? Right now we see the direct appeal to consumers that Motorola has been pushing with the X and G is slowing paying a return. Our hope is that it continues to grow and that this latest marriage for Moto will become the happy ending we all wished for this veritable brand.

Galaxy S4 benefitting from ‘Verizon effect’ in consumer surveys | Mobile Technology | Wireless Broadband | Wireless Carriers | RCR U.S. Wireless NewsMobile Technology | Wireless Broadband | Wireless Carriers | RCR U.S. Wireless News

Argus Insights CEO recently had a conversation with RCR Wireless’s Martha DeGrasse around the key findings in the latest weekly Smartphone Demand report. Top of mind was the comeback of the Galaxy S IV thanks to Verizon and the surprise that the Blackberry Z10 continues to demand attention. The report will be released later this week. Sign up for a subscription here.

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