Adoption of Smart Home and Energy Efficiency Products Hero

Adoption of Smart Home and Energy Efficiency Products Among Middle Income Families [INFOGRAPHIC]

Aug 08, 2024

HIRI recent­ly sur­veyed over 8,000 home­own­ers to provide the home improvement industry with an understanding of both how famil­iar home­own­ers are with ener­gy effi­cien­cy, smart home tech­nolo­gies and sus­tain­abil­i­ty prac­tices and an understanding of what moti­vates and dri­ves home­own­er inter­est in these areas.

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Through HIRI’s research, we found that over the next five years, more than one-third of home­own­ers plan to invest in smart home sys­tems and ener­gy-effi­cient appli­ances. Inter­est is dri­ven by improved prod­uct qual­i­ty, cost sav­ings, and grow­ing social and envi­ron­men­tal con­scious­ness. How­ev­er, ris­ing costs and finan­cial con­cerns out­weigh cli­mate change as pri­ma­ry fac­tors influ­enc­ing these decisions.

While the full study address­es these top­ics across sev­en dis­tinct cus­tomer seg­ments, let’s take a clos­er look at one group in par­tic­u­lar, the mid­dle income fam­i­ly, which cur­rent­ly shows the most promise for smart home and ener­gy effi­cien­cy prod­uct adoption.

Middle Income Familiarity with Smart Home Energy Efficiencies and Sustainability Practices

The major­i­ty of mid­dle income fam­i­lies are famil­iar with smart home, ener­gy effi­cien­cy, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty prac­tices in the con­text of their home. Across these three cat­e­gories of tech­nolo­gies, famil­iar­i­ty is con­sis­tent­ly 15 – 16% high­er among mid­dle income fam­i­lies than the next near­est segment.

Middle Income Family Likelihood of Adoption Over the Next 5 Years….

Middle Income Likelihood of Adoption the Next 5 Years

….Compared with All Homeowners Likelihood of Adoption Over the Next 5 Years

All Homeowners Adoption 5 Years
Homeowners 42% More Likely to Adopt Smart Home and Energy Efficient
Motivators to Middle Income Families
Barriers to Middle Income Families

One in three home­own­ers are resis­tant to adopt­ing smart home tech­nolo­gies due to pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty con­cerns and few­er see cost as a moti­va­tor for smart home tech­nolo­gies as com­pared to ener­gy effi­cien­cy and sus­tain­ably built home improve­ment investments.

Near­ly three-quar­ters of respon­dents con­sid­er ener­gy-effi­cien­cy impor­tant when mak­ing home improve­ment deci­sions, in con­trast to only half con­sid­er­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty impor­tant and even few­er, one-third, con­sid­er­ing smart home inte­gra­tions impor­tant when mak­ing home improve­ment decisions.

Energy Efficiency More Important as Homeowners Age
Importance By Age Group
Importance of Energy Efficiency Sustainability and Smart Home
Middle Income Use of Incentives Rebates
Middle Income Use of Incentives Rebates Data
Recent Movers More Likely to Use Rebates Incentives

Aggregated Findings From Across All Homeowners

Four in ten home­own­ers report chang­ing their per­spec­tives over the past 5 years due to prod­uct improve­ments, cost sav­ings, and envi­ron­men­tal and social con­scious­ness while a quar­ter of respon­dents are unchanged.

Perspective Shifts in Energy Efficiency Smart Homes and Sustainability
Share of Homeowners Stating Intent to Make Increase Investments Over the Next 5 Years

Smart Home and Energy Efficiency Perception Differences Between Buyer Segments

The above infor­ma­tion only cov­ers a sub­set of infor­ma­tion from HIRI’s Home­own­er Trends in Ener­gy Effi­cien­cy, Smart Home and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Study, avail­able in full to HIRI mem­bers, which has in-depth report­ing across the fol­low­ing dis­tinct buy­er segments:

Perception Differences Between Buyer Segments Stacked Cards


 Homeowner Trends in Energy Efficiency, Smart Home and Sustainability

Mem­bers have access to the full reports and raw data sets used to com­pile the infor­ma­tion in this info­graph­ic includ­ing the HIRI’s Home­own­er Trends in Ener­gy Effi­cien­cy, Smart Home and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Study.

HIRI mem­bers gain access to the raw data behind info­graph­ics like this one, to slice-and-dice the raw data to suit the needs of their own cus­tomer insights teams and answer cross-depart­­­men­­­tal ques­tions about how to take home improve­ment prod­ucts to market.

Join the ranks of the top man­u­fac­tur­ers and retail­ers in the home improve­ment space. Book your mem­ber­ship con­sul­ta­tion to learn more about what kinds of mem­ber exclu­­sive infor­ma­tion your team would have access to.

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