SAN DIEGO, Feb. 6, 2008 -- Driven by emerging standards, increasing energy costs, and advances with Wireless Sensor Networking (WSN), the "smart home" is becoming a reality for the mass market, according to recent research from ON World.
ON World's extensive investigation with over 100 home installers, vendors, and suppliers found that the wireless smart home market is accelerating. Indicators of this growth include hundreds of products currently shipping and established service providers such as AT&T and SK Telecom are starting to offer WSN based home monitoring services.
The Wireless Smart Home Market is Accelerating

"While proprietary WSN systems have been used by professional installers in luxury homes for over a decade, wireless protocols such as Z-Wave and ZigBee will make smart home solutions affordable for the average household," says Darryl Gurganious, senior research analyst for ON World.

With a total potential market size of 6 billion cumulative WSN nodes worldwide, the residential sector is an essential target market for wireless sensing and control solutions. Some of the largest and fastest growing smart home markets include lighting, energy management, security, entertainment control, and home health. In 2012, the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) smart home market will be worth $2.8 billion worldwide, up from $470 million in 2007.

Wireless Protocols Collide

The growth of the smart home market is largely attributed to the success of wireless mesh networking protocols such as ZigBee and Z-Wave and the industry alliances that were formed to promote each of these. ZigBee and Z-Wave are battling over control of the smart home. ZigBee based solutions are preferred by global manufacturers and professional installers. Z-Wave is increasingly being adopted by retail focused companies such as Actiontec, Intermatic, Jasco, Hawking, and Monster Cable.

ON World's recent report, "WSN for Smart Homes," dissects the ZigBee/ Z-Wave battle and provides evidence that clarifies the market hype and controversy over these protocols. In addition, the report provides in-depth chip level evaluation, global forecasts, primary research with installers, and an extensive competitive analysis on 70 companies in the WSN smart home value system. For more information, go to: http://onworld.com/smarthomes/

About ON World:

ON World Inc. is the leader in emerging wireless research. Our market intelligence and information services are sold to Fortune 1000 companies, service providers, venture capitalists, and startups worldwide. Website: http://www.onworld.com.

Media Contact:
Mary E. Purvis
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Email: purvis@onworld.com