ABI Research Projects Growth of Home Automation Market

ABI Research has predicted that more than 12 million home automation systems would be in use by the year 2016. These results are the outcome of a home automation survey by the firm. This huge growth is due to the increase in the “no new wire” wireless standard being adopted.

Technologies such as ZigBee are capable of providing cost- effective systems that expand the scope of the addressable market. The Android@Home Framework launched by Google is an example of one such system. It essentially has a middle ware layer on top of an Android OS. The Framework enables the APIs to exercise control over light switches and other consumer appliances. The appliances are connected to a central automation system, which can be controlled by a smart phone. The system is useful especially in places where Wi-Fi connectivity is not available.

In the words of the practice director, the news about the Android Framework that was released by the press did not pay attention to the most important aspect, the wireless protocol. ABI Research is of the opinion that the Framework is being viewed as a competition by software vendors like Motorola Mobility, Control4 etc. He added that the vendors are interested in building partnerships amongst themselves in order to cope with the market competition against big players like Google.