By Jonathan Easton
Smart home services provider Plume has surpassed 1 billion unique connected devices on its cloud controlled network.
The company is partnered with more than 200 communications service providers (CSPs) operating across 30 million locations globally.
In announcing the milestone, Plume revealed a number of garnered by monitoring traffic on its network.
The biggest is the impact of COVID-19, with the number of devices per US household increasing by 38 per cent during the pandemic. This represents an increase from 13 devices per household in October 2019 to an average of 18 in May 2021.
The company also noted that entertainment-based smart home devices increased by 16 per cent overall from October 2019 to May 2021. The most common smart entertainment category was TVs and streaming devices, which grew by 34 per cent from October 2019 to May 2021, while traditional set-top boxes grew by 2 per cent. The fastest-growing entertainment device category was virtual reality which experienced 223 per cent growth.
CTO at Plume, Bill McFarland said: “This milestone is significant because it marked the arrival of the truly connected smart home. In the US, we are seeing 38 per cent growth in connected devices per home on our cloud-controlled software defined network (SDN), and believe this is just the tip of the iceberg as more consumers see the value and realize the promise of smart WiFi and smart homes.”
