“No New Wire” to Drive Home Automation Market to 12 Million Systems in 2016

Shipments of home automation systems will total about 1.8 million worldwide this year. But, according to ABI Research, that number is set to rise sharply soon, exceeding 12 million in 2016. These figures are contained in a new home automation study from the firm, which confirms its previous forecasts. This robust growth is the result of standards-based, "no new wire" wireless and powerline technologies, such as ZigBee, that drive down system costs and expand the addressable market.

The market is also seeing considerable innovation, such as Google's recently launched Android@Home Framework, including a new low power wireless communications protocol to support device connectivity. Much has been made of Android@Home's potential as a ZigBee Killer, but that largely misses the point. ABI Research believes the Framework is more directly targeted as competition for the software now being provided by vendors such as Control4, Motorola Mobility (via its 4Home acquisition) and iControl. However, these incumbent vendors themselves are engaged in consolidation and partnership development, meaning that Google is now up against the likes of AT&T (Xanboo), Motorola (4Home), iControl (original iControl + uControl), Control4 (Cisco) and Honeywell, rather than the set of small start-ups it would have faced three or four years ago.