Home sweet home

There has been a lot of good news coming out lately on the state of residential security, which over the past few years has been bolstered by interactive and connected services, home automation, DIY and the emergence of mobile everything.

Technavio recently released a report on the residential security market, which shows that from 2016 to 2020 the global market for residential security will grow at a 7.34 percent CAGR—from $21.93 billion to $31.25 billion. The North American market will rise to about $15 billion in 2020, up from $12.51 billion in 2016, at a CAGR of 4.56 percent.

On the heals of that research, a report on home automation from Zion Research shows that the global home automation market was valued at around $5.0 billion in 2014 and is expected to reach $21.0 billion in 2020, growing at a CAGR of around 25 percent between 2015 and 2020.

Interestingly, the home automation market was dominated by North America, which accounted for about 40 percent of the total market in 2014. North America is followed by Europe and Asia Pacific, with Europe expected to witness robust growth in home automation systems market owing to strong demand from Germany, UK and France, according to the report.

The report also noted that the wireless system management segment dominated the home automation market in 2014, accounting for more than 40 percent of the overall market in 2014. With increasing use of products enabled with Wi-Fi technology, demand for wireless system management is expected to go up, the report said.

From my conversations with residential dealers, many are taking advantage of these new opportunities, providing scalable smart home packages that provide their customers with the kind of home automation customization and interactive services they are clamoring for, while increasing the potential RMR for an account.

Dealers are also finding that the more customers interact with their security and home automation systems, the more likely they are to stay a customer and add on services in the future. In addition to providing greater control over their security, surveillance, lighting and heating systems, homeowners are realizing energy savings, reduction in insurance costs, and overall greater peace of mind as a result of this smart home revolution.

As the studies mentioned above bear out, the potential within residential security is limitless.