Smart home market to reach $195 billion by 2021

If trends at the Consumer Electronics Show this year are anything to go by, smart homes are the new “hot” thing right now. The numbers agree. Juniper Research projects revenues from smart hardware and services will rise to $83 billion this year and continue on to hit $195 billion by 2021.

Many manufacturers are involved in spurring innovation in the smart home market, but a few major technology companies come up again and again in this market. Juniper estimates that among the companies, Amazon, Samsung, Alphabet and Apple will remain dominant over the next several years.

Amazon is in the lead thanks to how it has wielded Alexa, the company's digital assistant. Amazon opened up Alexa to third-party developers through an API, making it the most ubiquitous artificial intelligence technology available. Companies have been busy putting Alexa into everything, as was obvious at CES this year.

Just as what happened in smartphones, though, established players will face increasing competition as the smart home market matures and other sectors become more important. Juniper highlights the growing importance of smart appliances and monitoring, which is already seeing disruptive new entrants.