We are staying connected at home and on the go more than ever. A surprising new statistic by the NPD Group states that the national average for homes with Internet-connected devices is a whopping 5.7 devices per household in the United States. This is an increase from just three months ago when the average was 5.3 devices per household. That’s a lot of connectivity and when you count the Internet-connected devices in your own household it may not be that surprising after all. I counted at least twelve in my household of just two adults and one toddler. How many do you have?
The firm defined Internet-connected devices as any of your devices with Internet capability and can include any of the following: computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, HDTVs, Blu-ray disc players, video game consoles, and streaming media set top boxes. Both smartphones and tablets saw a significant increase with increased usage in Internet connected households and are expected to continue to rise in the coming months.
Although computers won’t be leaving households anytime soon, smartphones and tablets per household are quickly outnumbering PCs. John Buffone, the direct of devices at NPD Connected Intelligence, explains “ When you look at the combined number of smartphones and tablets consumers own, for the first time ever it exceeded the installed base of computers.” Smartphones increased by about 9 million and tablets gained nearly 18 million in the last three months. Apple and Samsung brands remained at the top of their market for US consumers.
The increase in smartphones and tablets as consumers become more connected naturally also increases the number of connected devices in an Internet-connected household. Of course, this increase could have gotten a large boost from wish lists for Santa and holiday shopping sales, but numbers are expected to rise indefinitely. With the low cost of tablets and smartphones when compared to PCs, it’s much more affordable to own these devices per family member. Streaming is also on the rise, as seen in Netflix’s percentage of Internet usage from its subscribers. The increase in Internet-connected devices per household also means that the way we actually connect to the net via our ISP and hardware are becoming equally important for a successful connection and an enjoyable experience. Bombarding our home network with at least 5.7 or maybe 10.2 devices is not that far-fetched and our ability to control, monitor, and tailor our Internet usage to the specific needs of our family is becoming vital. It’s easy to let your network be taken over by a streaming-happy bandwidth hog and not so easy to control or prevent that from happening when you need full-throttle uninterrupted Internet the most. The HomeNet™ Intelligent Router delivers the tools that we need to wrangle our family’s devices and maximize our connectivity with exciting features that allow scheduling, prioritizing, monitoring, and the ability to set up user profiles per device for each of our family member’s needs. You can make the most of your connectivity and also make sure that you are really getting what you are paying your ISP for when it comes to connectivity and speed.
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