Amazon and Comcast's Xfinity Home Share IoT Strategies at First Day of CONNECTIONS(TM)

DALLAS, TX--(Marketwired - May 24, 2016) - Parks Associates kicked off the first day of CONNECTIONS™: The Premier Connected Home Conference today with sessions and keynotes examining the innovations, business models, and trends for the connected home ecosystems, including the disruptive effects of connected technologies on the consumer-based IoT. The firm's leading analysts discussed new research today, and the keynote speakers included David Isbitski, Chief Evangelist for Alexa and Echo at Amazon, and Daniel Herscovici, SVP & GM of at Comcast's Xfinity Home.

"Today's average U.S. broadband household owns over eight connected CE devices, an increase from less than seven in 2013," said Stuart Sikes, President of Parks Associates. "CONNECTIONS™ attendees gained enormous insight today from Amazon and Comcast about how companies are capturing market share by embracing the next phase of the connected home."

Since the first CONNECTIONS™ in 1996, the conference has evolved into the premier event in the connected home space. At this year's event, May 24-26 in San Francisco, more than 650 attendees participated in panel discussions focused on the converging IoT industries -- including smart home, connected entertainment, and mobile ecosystems.

"Amazon had a significant presence at CES 2016 in promoting its Echo/Alexa, which is helping push smart home into mass-market consciousness. Comcast XFINITY is in the top three of security providers in the U.S., behind ADT and AT&T, which highlights the disruptive influence of service providers as they've entered the security markets with IoT solutions," Sikes said. "The first day of CONNECTIONS™ provides an informed overview of strategies to engage consumers and the trends that bought us to this phase of the connected home, with companies like Ericsson discussing their connected car strategies, Samsung sharing plans for VR, and Intel emphasizing the importance of privacy and security safeguards in the smart home."

Daniel Herscovici delivered the opening keynote "Platform Disruption: Overcoming IoT Adoption Challenges" at 10:15 a.m., and David Isbitski delivers the keynote "Accelerating Smart Home Adoption through Voice Control and Alexa" at 2:15 p.m.

"Consumers want simple smart home solutions that provide peace of mind, modern lifestyle conveniences and easy-to-use services," said Daniel Herscovici, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Xfinity Home, Comcast. "By redefining the connected home platform and determining how to best get it into consumer households, we can overcome adoption challenges and convert customers to true end-to-end solutions, services and experiences, such as Xfinity Home."