7A- Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

1)    I would like to take advantage of the opportunities opening up in the new smart home gadget market. Since a lot of consumers enter the market with very little knowledge, I believe the opportunity lies in helping them make the right choices.

2)    Individual consumers are unable to successfully navigate the smart home market because of lack of knowledge about the products, and the high price of individual products.

3)    I believe that this opportunity exists as long as two things stay the same: the prices of the gadgets stay high, and consumer knowledge of the market stays low.  As the market grows, the prices will go down, and the knowledge will increase. I believe that the opportunity will still be there, just not as lucrative.  The prototypical consumer would obviously be people who don’t know a lot about technology, most likely older people (as younger people are usually more fluent in tech).  As price is a concern, I believe that there will be a market in middle class households (who can buy the tech but may not be willing to splurge).  While there are certainly groups who would be more likely to benefit from this opportunity, I believe anyone in the smart home gadget market could be interested.  People buy smart home gadgets to make their lives, or their loved-one’s lives easier. They can help if you have a busy life, or kids, or an elderly relative who has trouble getting around.  There a lot of reasons to want to make the switch. Right now, they are the most intuitive products on the market.  As long as they continue to improve, and the market continues to develop, more and more people will become interested.  Obviously, there are alternatives to make your life easier, but as the world moves closer to tech, it seems like the likely progression. I think the opportunity is best taken advantage of if we cover all aspects of the smart home. This might include everything from an Amazon Alexa, to a lighting remote. I think this makes it easier to help the consumer; since usually when you buy smart home tech you buy more than one product. Either way, I think that to take advantage of this opportunity, you have to help the consumer.  The only way to continue to take advantage of the opportunity as the market grows is to keep the individual consumer happy.  The way to do that is to have good prices, and good service.

4)    Security, make life easier (could be excessive), lights, Over the course of my interviews, I saw a lot of different perspectives of this opportunity.  I assumed that everyone would be open to buying smart appliances.  A couple of my interviewee’s supported this idea.  They seemed excited because they would make their lives easier. The products they seemed most interested in were a wifi-enabled coffee maker, refrigerator, and light remotes.  One man was very weary of the idea though. His biggest concern was security. He seemed opposed to smart home products because he doubted his own privacy with all the tech in his house. Another guy seemed only interested in the security possibilities of the tech.  He said that he would consider the price if all of it was smart home security products.  The last woman I talked to said that no matter the price, she wouldn’t buy the product. She said that she didn’t have much extra money, especially to spend on a “luxary” or non-necessity.

5)    I hadn’t realized how many people were opposed to smart technology.  I guess I had always thought of it’s position as a new product market as a good thing. What this means to some consumers is: use caution.  Many of them seemed to not completely understand what it meant to have a “smart home”.  I also hadn’t thought about how personalized the selling might be.  Some people might like certain devices, some might want others. You can’t standardize this technology because it all plays different roles.  I think our biggest challenge would be finding a decent price point to take advantage of this opportunity on a broader socioeconomic scale.