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hospitals or assisted living. People want to rely
on technology and connectivity in a controlled
environment.
Netgem: A CPE provider can play a different
role only if they offer a ‘Service wrapper’. We
have provided the ‘TV User experience’ and we
are now enhancing it with Voice control, and
the integration of ‘WiFi Mesh’ control within
the same application. So, our services are the
ones that create stickiness, while the devices
are just enablers (STB and WiFi Mesh Pods).
SaH: Service provider CPE can definitely play
a role in monetising the home and cutting
churn, absolutely when it comes to target
advertising. Recently, the French government
announced a new decree, allowing household
and geo-based targeting on linear TV, and we
at SoftAtHome are working hard to deliver
this service to our customers. In addition,
smart WiFi can also be monetised with IoT
management, as we can see with the smart
home in our deployments: Orange’s Maison
connectée, O2 in Czech Republic and others.
There is also an opportunity to monetise the
security of the home LAN.
Technicolor: The democratisation of Open
CPE environments is making it easier for NSPs
to work constructively with a wider ecosystem
of technology partners and bring innovative
and added value services to their users.
Targeted advertising and IoT management are
just two examples.
On the broadband side, we have seen
quite a growing array of services launched
and monetised by operators: premium WiFi
services (diagnostics and cure solutions),
security, cyber-security, as well as gaming
applications.
In the IoT arena, there is a plethora
of offers from many different vendors.
Consequently, we are seeing a heterogeneous
mix of WiFi extenders, smart locks, health
monitoring systems, intelligent appliances
-- and much more -- that involve different
in-home network and infrastructure resources.
Bringing all of these moving parts together is
challenging but by leveraging open platforms,
NSPs can monetise offerings that help
consumers manage multiple IoT services easily
with a minimal need for user intervention.
On the video side, services providers are
Research: 90% of voice assistants to
control smart homes by 2024
Data from Juniper Research has found that the number of
voice assistants used to access smart home devices will reach
555m by 2024; up from 105m in 2019. By 2024, Juniper
Research expects more than 90% of voice assistants to be used to
control smart home devices; driven by increased participation from
Chinese manufacturers.
The research, Smart Homes: Strategic Opportunities, Business
Models & Competitive Landscape 2019-
2024, found that voice assistants are an
increasingly crucial element in the smart
home; providing interoperability platforms
that enable seamless control of the whole
smart home.
The research found that Amazon leads
the way, thanks to advanced hub features
included in the Echo Plus, heavy investment
from its Alexa Fund, and Alexa Skills access;
enabling a vast third-party app ecosystem.
Recent high-profile acquisitions such as Blink,
Ring and eero will further bolster its ability to innovate across the
smart home.
Google will capitalise on its acquisition of Nest, adding Assistant
in a new range of devices such as the Google Nest Hub Max,
transforming its proposition in the smart home market. Juniper
Research believes that Google’s investment in AI will enable it to add
more intelligent and autonomous functions, providing a compelling
differentiator. It should bolster this with heavy investment in
partnerships to further build out its ecosystem.
Chinese manufacturers are increasingly developing more
advanced voice assistants, such as iFlytek, Baidu and Huawei. While
current penetration of voice assistants is
low in China, Juniper Research anticipates
low cost smart speakers will drive usage of
assistants in China in the smart home to over
100m in 2024, from just 4m in 2019.
Chinese influence will be limited to the
domestic market however, given security
concerns around Huawei in the US. The
sensitive role of voice assistants means they
will become the centrepiece of concerns if
launched in Western markets so limiting their
overall potential.
14 EUROMEDIA