European State of the Market Report

3 Million European Homes Now Have Connected Heating Controls

Delta-ee's latest European State of the Market Report has found 3M homes in Europe are equipped with smart thermostats or connected room heating controls and that number is set to grow to 9M by the end of 2019.

The connected home market is developing very rapidly.

"There are two key trends in this space today," explains Arthur Jouannic, Senior Analyst and Connected Home expert at Delta-ee.

"Firstly, the market has clearly taken off with over 50 players offering connected heating controls in Europe, with those like Centrica, Eneco, Bosch and EQ-3 securing more than 100,000 new customers a year. Some companies have already equipped 20% of their customers with smart thermostats.

"Secondly, these players are working hard to cross sell additional devices like smart plugs or connected lighting and to provide additional services such as remote boiler diagnostics."

Delta-ee research has found 2M European homes already have connected lightbulbs installed and 1M already have smart plugs.

The recent launch of Amazon Echo in the UK and Germany has had a strong early impact on the sales of home automation devices and this trend will continue when the product is released in other European countries, most likely this year.

"We are now observing a snowball effect with energy suppliers, boiler manufacturers, telcos, security, insurance and home assistance companies all entering the market." continues Arthur.

Most energy and heating industry companies have realised that this market is going to happen with or without them so the questions now being asked are: who will be the fastest at securing large numbers of customers? And who will be able to provide services that engage customers and drive revenue growth?