Mubasher: US-based Linksys said that the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT), a system of interrelated computing devices, is rapidly increased in the Middle East, especially in the GCC countries,
There is a large number of people in the GCC investing in smart devices for their home, according to the latest study released on Wednesday by Linksys on consumer Wi-Fi usage trends.
“The number of people using smart devices in the home is increasing rapidly, which means there is also a growing need to upgrade to bigger, faster home Wi-Fi systems,” Amanulla Khan, managing director of Linksys Middle East, Turkey and Africa, commented.
There're endless benefits of IoT in the home, as they include smart lighting and thermostats, in addition to smart fridges and machine learning devices, according to the American company selling data networking hardware products.
“People may not realise that even if they only stream Netflix on a smart TV, it affects the overall Wi-Fi experience for others in the household by using bandwith,” Khan added.
According to the recent study, 85.4% of respondents from the Middle East own at least one smart TV, out of which 27.9% respondents own multiple smart TVs.
The UAE topped the GCC nations in the adoption of smart TVs, followed by Saudi Arabia with 86.6% and 84.2%, respectively.
Moreover, there are other smart devices that have reached the 40% adoption barrier include connected security cameras and smart lighting, with 39.3% and 39.6% of Middle East respondents owning such devices, respectively, the US firm noted.
Around 58.5% of respondents who don’t own any smart home devices are keen to adopt IoT in their homes, the study forecast.
“While we are now talking smart lighting and voice assistants, in the next couple of years we’ll move to even smarter connected devices in the home driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning,” Khan said.
