Essence notes trends from 2016, makes predictions for 2017

TEL AVIV, Israel—Smart home device provider Essence made some predictions about 2017's landscape for the Internet of Things.

The company highlighted voice recognition, new business models, and enhanced user experience as positive trends in 2016. Essence also pointed out negative trends in the year, such as interconnectivity issues and cybersecurity problems.

For 2017, Essence predicted that companies will begin to analyze data, such as energy consumption reports, into profitable information, bringing in a separate stream of revenue, according to Rafi Zauer, Essence Group's head of marketing. “There's going to be less of a reliance on recurring revenue and services revenue to prop up the business model for smart home,” he told Security Systems News.

This trend comes both from new technologies gathering data as well as companies operating under a new mindset. Companies are “looking around, saying, 'hey, what other benefits do we get from offering smart home services?' And it's not just hardware revenue and service revenue,” Zauer said. Other trends for the upcoming year include more voice integrations, according to Essence.

Essence noticed these trends across several regions of the globe, according to Zauer, and picked up on these trends through its sales force, exhibiting and attending industry trade shows and conversations with industry analysts.

Some trends have more relevance in certain regions, according to Zauer. “New business models will come up first, as usual, in the U.S., with Europe being a little behind. On the other hand, I think energy providers in the smart home market will be led more by Europe,” he said.

Essence also saw that in 2016 security monitoring companies showed value, because users wanted that incorporated into the smart home, at leas as a part-time option while away from the home, Zauer said.

Zauer expects monitoring companies to remain strong in 2017, in part by offering new services such as offering self monitoring alongside 24/7 professional monitoring. Though, new vertical growth may not be reliant on professional monitoring, he added.

“Our roadmap in the near future contains new integrations that will help us address these trends a little better and provide better solutions for these verticals, like data analysis, which we can offer our customers as a service,” Zauer said. This service will be coming later in 2017, he added.