The share of US households adopting smart home devices will grow to 41.9% this year as consumers increasingly demand convenience and data transparency.

3G shutdowns don’t just affect smartphone holdouts: The year-end transition will affect cellular customers as well as IoT, smart home, and home security systems, potentially pushing more users to 5G.

Matter rollout delayed because of growing adoption: More smart home manufacturers want in on the industry standard, but could delays stop larger manufacturers from releasing products?

Trend No. 1: Smart Home Integration. As smart devices proliferated over the past few years, they mostly operated within their own ecosystems, i.e., Amazon devices worked with Alexa, Google devices with Google Home, Apple devices with HomeKit, and Samsung devices with SmartThings.

Smart home devices, such as remotely-controlled security systems, followed the same trend. Penetration of these products climbed from 13.5% to 18.5% YoY. As in 2020, smart home device ownership remained several percentage points greater among 25- to 34-year-olds and affluents. Smart TV ownership in China declined between 2019 and 2020 but increased in H1 2021 to 38.0%.

Smart home: New technologies and gadgets of all sizes and shapes lined the show halls and gave visitors a preview of the best tech that’s coming to smart homes. Sengled shared its Smart Health Monitoring Light Bulbs, which can detect when a person has fallen as well as monitor vital signs such as heart rate and breathing.

As more users adopt smart home products, brands will have an increasing number of opportunities to reach and interact with their customers if they keep privacy needs in mind.

Smart home device adoption could finally get boosted by a new standard. Could Matter push adoption beyond the steady growth we’re seeing?

Among affluent internet users, nearly 22% owned a smart home device this year. However, internet users are already more likely to use a voice assistant than to own a smartwatch, smart wristband, or smart home device.

Both devices are entering the mainstream, especially among the more affluent. Smart home devices—including energy monitors and web-connected security systems—continued along a similar trajectory, with ownership rising from 15.0% last year to 21.5% in H1 2021. More than 28% of affluent internet users owned a smart home product.