MIDiA Data Spotlight: Home Technology Ownership is Going Both Deep and Wide

This is part of MIDiA’s data snapshot series in which we spotlight curated consumer datasets. 

Figure            The Digital Home is Becoming Increasingly Sophisticated Household Ownership of Digital Technology,            2018

The ‘digital home’ was a term that rose to prominence in the mid 2000s as the first generation of home router centred devices started to come to market at scale. It proved to be a false dawn, but the push has been resuscitated under the banner of the ‘connected home’. While many of the connected home aspirations are as unrealistic as the original digital home ambitions were, it is clear that the average consumer’s home is becoming increasingly sophisticated, with a wide variety of devices owned.

Smart TVs and games consoles are the two most widely owned devices –            and            consumer penetration respectively. Games consoles are an old and stable category, within which Sony Playstation accounts for            of ownership, Microsoft Xbox            and Nintendo            Smart TVs are clearly a much more recent development and are building solid momentum, though not all of these sets are being used as smart TVs by their owners.

Streaming is playing a growing role in consumers’ homes, as evidenced by smart speakers (e.g. Amazon Echo,            media streamers (e.g. Apple TV,            wireless headphones (e.g. Bose            and wireless speakers (e.g. Sonos,           

Emerging technologies such as Smartwatches (e.g. Apple Watch,            VR headsets (e.g. Oculus Rift            and interactive car dashboards            remain at niche levels of adoption. Of the three, VR is the least likely to push into penetration levels similar to wireless speakers.