Insteon Poised to Dominate Wireless Home

[WayneW]

Insteon continues its leading position in the Wireless Home Application market, principally because of out-of-the-box interoperability potentially from various vendors. New WTRS Report focuses on Insteon and includes business case studies of ZigBee, Z-Wave, X-10 and UPB, while comparing forecast growth.

Mountain View, CA (PRWEB) July 13, 2006 -- Insteon, a two way wireless standard with a powerline control enhancement that enables environmental monitoring as well as control using one remote device, offers interoperability of products from many vendors without the aid of an industry alliance, according to WTRS. Zone control within the home of both the lighting and HVAC systems lowers energy costs and hence enables vendors to more easily meet Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star guidelines for energy efficiency.

"At this point Insteon is competing for market share with legacy X10, Infrared, proprietary RF (Lutron, Zensys), ZigBee, and IEEE 802.15.4 products," says Kirsten West, PhD, founder and Principal Analyst with the high-tech market research firm WTRS. "We have found many of the end product companies are increasingly focused on choosing an option which enables out-of-the-box interoperability of products from various vendors. However, today Insteon is the best positioned product to enable lighting and HVAC zone control in the home. Given that temperature control and lighting represent 67% of the average household utility bill, zone control will become increasing significant over the next few years."

read the full WTRS press release at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/7/prweb410594.htm

 

[WayneW]

WTRS has also found that:

1. The total available market for sensor-controllers in home applications is roughly 160 million units in the US. The market is dominated by audio & video equipment, followed by electric housewares & fans and residential electric lighting fixtures. This TAM, however, stands to significantly increase over the next 5 years as manufacturing and construction companies increasingly incorporate "smart" capabilities into their design and everyday items.

2. Lighting control applications alone represent a total addressable market of more than 60 million nodes this year. Lighting is one particular application in which various technical and business reasons come together to form a barrier to entry that Insteon alone can easily cross.

3. Legacy X10 represents a significant market opportunity for Insteon as it is compatible with legacy X10 products and offers consumers a gradual upgrade path rather than a complete replacement.

4. Of the competitive wireless IEEE 802.15.4 implementations available today, that may eventually reach pricing of $1 (including the microcontroller), it is only Insteon which will drop below that. A conservative forecast of the average chipset selling price indicates the potential to reach $0.53 in 2010.

5. Insteon is well suited to appliance management applications where the Powerline is readily available and the amount of metal and presence of motors in the appliances makes wireless by itself not an attractive option.

Recent WTRS research, Insteon Technology Market Intelligence Report (#WT061007INMIR), examines the newest developments in the Insteon market and the overall addressable market for home sensor-controller applications.

This report evaluates potential Insteon chipset penetration and profitability in varying market segments. A business case study compares total addressable market for Insteon, as well as those of ZigBee, Z-Wave, X-10, and UPB. Five-year chipset shipment forecasts for Insteon are presented by worldwide geographic region, as well as by major geographic region. Five-year revenue forecasts for Insteon by specific home control application are also included, as well as a comparison with the forecast for competing wireless and wired technologies. The report includes analysis of Insteon technology, customer development, and an evaluation of application requirements and market drivers.

More information on this research

Title: Insteon Market Intelligence Report: A Comprehensive Evaluation of Insteon Market Potential
Product Number: WT061007INMIR
Publication Date: July 2006
Number of Pages: 73
Market Brief, Table of Contents, Figures & Tables all available upon request

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Market Research from WTRS

West Technology Research Solutions, LLC (WTRS) is an independent market research and consulting company with 8 years in wireless research specializing in Insteon, ZigBee, UWB, Bluetooth, WiMAX, IEEE 802.15.4, Wi-Fi, and other emerging wireless technologies and protocols. WTRS reports are not funded by, or in any other way influenced by, companies which we study. WTRS helps companies track the market potential & viability of wireless emerging technologies. WTRS market research and consulting services provides customers with the information they need to assess market opportunities, evaluate investments, monitor competition, form relationships, and make crucial business decisions in following cutting-edge technologies. WTRS customers range from start-ups, some still in development, to the largest and most prominent players in technology. All have an interest in market intelligence that aids them in making crucial business decisions.

 

[Dean Roddey]

When you read a story like that, and then you read the real world issues that people have with these technologies, and we are talking here people many times more geeky and techno-capable than your average person, and you have to wonder if they even ever try these technologies themselves. Except for folks like us, few people are going to successfully install these systems themselves, i.e. they will be professionally installed, and few professionals are likely to install Insteon from what I hear from them. That doesn't mean necessarily that it's worse than the other options, since all the retro-fit options seem to have their quirks, but just that it's not much on the radar screens of pro installers.

So it's kind of hard to figure out where these folks get their information and opinions from. It seems to me that before this rosy scenario will come to pass, these devices will have to be extremely accurate and free of interference all the time, and that doesn't seem likely. The only systems likely to meet the robustness requirements of 'install and forget' in a home where it will receive no active maintenance and troubleshooting by the home owner, are hardwired systems, it would seem to me, or high end retro fit systems like RadioRA. Maybe Zigbee will meet that criteria, I dunno, but probably not at the prices discussed in that article any time soon.

But, what do I know, I just sit in front of a computer all day and drink coffee. For all I know, all of you are just one of my hallucinations.

 

[elcano]

Mountain View, CA (PRWEB) July 13, 2006 -- Insteon, a two way wireless standard with a powerline control enhancement...

This line shocked me as soon as I read it. Shouldn't this be a two way powerline control standard with wireless enhancement instead?

When you read the list of ingredients in can of soup it will list the ingredients according to the amount of each ingredient (water, pasta, salt, natural flavors).

This line give prominency to the wireless part for which no device exists yet. Granted, the standard includes a wireless component that is as important as the PLC one, but for an unbiased market analysis you should not count with the wireless part as much as you can not count with any drafted-but-no-device-yet standard.

 

[rocco]

I give this report little credibility.

First of all, it is a press release posted on a PR web site. So some public relations company is paying for it.

Second, the source of the "research" appears to be other SmartLabs press releases.

 

[WayneW]

First of all, it is a press release posted on a PR web site. So some public relations company is paying for it.

WTRS issued the press release to solicit sales of their report, no secret there. Hopefully George West will post here with more info.

 

[Guy Lavoie]

Salesspeak words like "poised", "dominate" and "leading position" can only come from a marketing department. You can spot them a mile away!

 

[George West]

First of all, it is a press release posted on a PR web site. So some public relations company is paying for it.

WTRS issued the press release to solicit sales of their report, no secret there. Hopefully George West will post here with more info.

Thank you for the lead in Wayne,

The press release was made to advertise the publication of our latest report on INSTEON. This report was originally published in January of 2005 and we have been continuously updating the information and forecasts on a regular basis since then. The INSTEON Market Intelligence Report is just one of a number of reports that we publish examining the technologies and applications that are roughly classed as low data rate (ZigBee, Z-Wave, IEEE802.15.4)

WTRS does not accept compensation at any time for mentioning companies favorably in either our research reports or in press releases that we make. We also do not charge companies for providing quotes for their press releases. We do not give preferential coverage to companies that purchase our reports and we do not punish companies that are not our customers by making negative comments about their products or business.

If we say or write it, we believe that we have the hard data to back up our opinions and statements. We are trying to make a business of selling our analysis and information and not of providing a paid spin to support a company PR campaign. Anything published with the WTRS brand was written on a completely speculative basis.

We think that we are unique in the research industry with this policy and we have been told that we are fools for trying to build a business this way.

Regarding this press release and the announced report: No one out side of WTRS had any input on the contents of either the research report or the press release. We were not, have not and will not receive any compensation from SmartLabs, representatives of SmartLabs or any other third party for the contents of the press release or for the contents and conclusions contained in the report. The first time any third party had knowledge of the press release and its contents was on Monday when it was released.

To Guy, rocco, Dean Roddy and anyone else I may have neglected. You ask some good question and I will try and answer in more detail later in another post.

Finally, I post here under my real name so people can get an idea of where I am coming from. If you are in the SF Bay Area, our office is in Mountain View on Old Middlefield Way. The address and phone number is on the web site and if you want to drop by, have a cup of coffee and debate/discuss things give me a shout. I will also be attending CEDIA, EHX West and CES for anyone else that wants to meet and dish the industry.

George West
www.wtrs.net

 

[George West]

This is the reply to Dean, elcano, rocco and Guy that I promised earlier.

Dean - I have posted elsewhere a little about some of my experiences using INSTEON and Z-Wave products. A long time ago, on a couple of occasions, I was an unsatisfied X-10 user. Part of the long story is that I have an engineering degree, worked for about 15 yrs as an engineer developing realtime software and have way too many hours of graduate work to not have a graduate degree. Kirsten, who is the principal analyst of WTRS, has an MS in Physics and a Phd in Biophysics, both degrees which required a substantial amount of experimental and instrumentation work. To brag just a little we are not the typical liberal arts grads that worked for a while in marketing and then started an analyst firm that is a thinly disguised PR agency.

Your comment is regarding the professional installer market and to some extent I agree with what you are saying. Where we are focused in the report is on trends that will lead to mass adoption of these technologies. The way I look at this is IBM/HP/Compaq vs Dell with IBM standing in for the professional installer market and Dell standing in for an as of yet mass marketm for Home Control. I am not the originator of the observation that most professional installers will need to change their business models in response to the way that technology is disrupting this space.

Where we get our information is from open literature, personal experience and company interviews. We traveled every week in June to different conferences and shows. In the home control space specifically I was at EHX East and the short list of those I spoke with includes: Leviton, Cooper Wiring, Centralite, SmartLabs, Cortexa, ELK, Wayne-Dalton, Control4, Destiney Networks, Sonos, First Alert, HAL and a bunch of others. I have conducted interviews or had demonstrations from Logitech, Monster Cable, Zensys, SmartLabs, members of the ZigBee Alliance, the WiMedia Alliance and the USB Implementors Forum.

The forecasts themselves are done by Kirsten and derive from techniques she and her then boss developed in the midearly 90s. The short story is that she uses a technique called adoption curve modeling. The 160 Million number in the release refers to the potential market not what INSTEON or any other technology will actually achieve.

elcano - Well it is a press release. ;-)

I am trying to train myself to use RF when I mean radio only, since wireless as a term has been diluted so badly. Our first briefing on INSTEON (2004?) was actually on the RF implementation of the protocol. The problem we face when talking about this is that people say wired when they mean something closer to point to point and wireless the rest of the time. Some examples are Broadband over Powerline and Home Plug which are grouped with wireless even though both protocols run on power lines much like PLC.

My only defense is that when I try and make the distinction between wired solutions, wireless solutions and PLC to folks from outside the industry, their heads explode.

rocco - WTRS both wrote and paid for the release. We did not try and have it placed on CT - that was happenstance. Unfortunately this is what we have to do to get attention for our products and services. One of the hard lessons we have learned is that you need to be a little over the top in order to get any attention. In this case we used as a template the style of one of our competitors that is not so festidious about reality as we try to be.

I covered a little of the research and information sources above. If it sounds like SmartLabs press releases it might be because I have been quoted in some SmartLabs press releases.

Guy - I can assure you that "poised", "dominate" and "leading position" don't appear in the report itself.

On a more serious note, I would like to apologize to the guys at CT for the amount of attention this has caused. I mainly read CT to keep up with what is going on in the industry and to get ideas for my own house. I try and avoid making posts that are specifically about some product we are pushing, unless it is something that is free like our newsletter interviews. To Wayne in particular thank you for posting the press release since it was picked up by Google as a result.

Thanks all,

George

 

[Dean Roddey]

You are only a couple miles from me actually (85 and El Camino.)

 

[IVB]

But, what do I know, I just sit in front of a computer all day and drink coffee. For all I know, all of you are just one of my hallucinations.

The address and phone number is on the web site and if you want to drop by, have a cup of coffee and debate/discuss things

Anyone else have a mental image of the movie "Twins" come to mind ?

 

[elcano]

George,

We appreciate the effort that you placed on answering our comments above. While investing time in defending your products might look like an obvious response from you, it also shows your respect for the opinion of this community.

 

[George West]

But, what do I know, I just sit in front of a computer all day and drink coffee. For all I know, all of you are just one of my hallucinations.

The address and phone number is on the web site and if you want to drop by, have a cup of coffee and debate/discuss things

Anyone else have a mental image of the movie "Twins" come to mind ?

It's worse than you think.

My office is about a 100 yards from the intersection where the Coke/Pepsi, Ginger/Maryanne of burrito joints, La Costena and Taqueria La Bamba, are located. It's possible we've jostled each other in line without knowing it...

G.