Smartphones make everything easier. A smartphone puts all your pictures, music, social media accounts, emails, and even credit cards right in the palm of your hand. With all this convenient digitalization, though, consumers do not discuss “payments” as much as other use cases. Based on over 75,000 smartphone consumer reviews collected from January 2016, consumers mention using a Smartphone for financial transactions in less than one percent of reviews. This small amount of discussion was led by buzz from Samsung Pay featured in Samsung’s newest models.
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A lot has changed since Steve Jobs publicly denounced the need for a stylus in his introduction of the iPhone in 2007. Namely, Apple released a stylus. While our fingers remain attached to us, and are therefore far less likely than a stylus to be lost or broken, Apple announced a stylus as an accessory for their business focused iPad Pro in their September 2015 keynote. The inclusion of a stylus with an Apple product clearly deviated from the company’s early messaging, but a stylus provides increased accuracy, needed for the advanced functions of the iPad Pro.
Since the release, iPad Pro consumers have been happy with the device, reporting higher delight for Apple’s iPad Pro than Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4. Analysis of recent consumer reviews about the stylus used with each tablet shows that consumers are also more satisfied with the Apple Pencil than the Surface Pen. The bars of the funnel below display the percentage of iPad Pro and Surface Pro 4 feedback in which consumers mentions of Stylus, Apple Pencil, and Surface Pen. Red is negative sentiment; blue is positive, and gray is neutral. While Microsoft consumers mention the stylus at a higher rate than Apple users, consumers report far more disappointment with the Surface Pro 4, with the majority of negative feedback mentioning broken tips and poor responsiveness. Apple’s branding is also stronger, as Apple users refer to the devices as an “Apple Pencil” more often than a generic “stylus,” while Microsoft users use “stylus” over “Surface Pen.”
Nest recently announced that they would shutdown the service that keeps Revolv Hubs running, leaving consumers with a device as useless as a container of hummus. Revolv is owned by Nest and shut down their service so they could pour all their “energy into Works with Nest.” Nest also owns Dropcam, a smart security camera company.
Shortly after Nest acquired Dropcam, the company launched the Nest Cam smart security camera as an improvement to the Dropcam Pro. While consumers reported higher delight for Dropcam cameras when the Nest Cam was launched in June 2015, consumers have been losing interest and delight as Nest Cam users are becoming happier and more prevalent. Dropcam users are being transitioned to the Nest App, but given Nest’s recent announcement about shutting down Revolv, we can’t help but wonder if Dropcam users should also be worried about their Nest owned devices becoming bricks.
Trajectory in the chart below shows delight over time, size of bubbles represent review volume per week.
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Nest recently announced that they will shutdown the cloud service that runs Revolv. While the company framed this shut down as a stepping stone on the greater path to a connected home, the immediate reality is that homes which are currently made ‘smart’ with Revolv hardware will revert back to being ‘dumb.’
Nest Labs is a leading manufacturer in the Smart Home market. They make some of the most popular smart thermostats, smoke detectors and security cameras available today, and are owned by tech giant, Google (Alphabet). Nest’s kiss of death for Revolv demonstrates a glimpse into yet another issue with the codependence of software and hardware in the Smart Home. Since Revolv hubs, like many other connected devices, are controlled through the cloud, the devices will be rendered useless when Nest discontinues the software.
Killing Revolv’s cloud will leave consumers with an expensive paper weight, or an empty container of Hummus as Arlo Gilbert so eloquently argued in this post. Nest’s actions throw IoT down a rabbit hole, demonstrating that companies have the power devalue your $300 gadget. An article in Wired argues that Nest’s decision proves we “can’t rely on ‘Internet of Things,'” since it makes 18 month old hubs obsolete. That’s one expensive container of hummus, so what’s the point of investing in a device that the manufacturer could render useless once they develop the next generation?
While Nest’s decision to shut down Revolv will obviously effect the Smart Home market, our consumer data shows nothing but discontent with Revolv products. Delight for the Revolv hub has been falling since the acquisition, while delight for Nest devices climbs.
While some Revolv fans will miss their hubs, Nest is using this as an opportunity to grow and promote their Works With Nest initiative. As a response to inquiries about opening up Revolv development to third parties, Nest responded by saying: “Revolv was a great first step toward the connected home, but we believe that Works with Nest is a better solution and are allocating resources toward that program.”
Nest had to trim some fat to focus their greater Smart Home efforts. Revolv was a casualty in the ongoing battle of the Smart Home Ecosystem (which, by the way, Amazon is currently dominating over Apple and Nest, read about that here).
Will this decision make consumers think twice about purchasing more Nest hardware? We are continuously monitoring the entire Smart Home market, you can subscribe to our free weekly Smart Home updates, or monitor Smart Home brands, retail, and feature trends monthly with our Fit Kits.
Tablets are a wonderful device for getting work done while you are on the go, but the market has gotten so cluttered it is difficult to identify the best devices. Major manufacturers Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung all offer several different tablets with a variety of sizes and functions. Among the high end models from these tech giants, Apple’s iPad Pro is the most well liked, while Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4 receives the most consumer feedback but is the least liked of the bunch (the size of the bubbles in the chart below represents consumer review volume by week).
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