Technavio recently published a new report outlining the direction for the smart home M2M market in the UK over the next four years.

A smart home is a home equipped with advanced and automated digital devices, home appliances, and other equipment that are interconnected, and which can be remotely accessed by users from any location via smartphone or tablet.

According to Technavio, the convenience and cost-savings offered by this kind of system will help the smart home M2M market in the UK reach $6.94 billion by 2019, growing at a CAGR of 24.39%.

High initial investment for home automation

But despite the strong projected growth, there are a few major barriers expected to stymie growth over the next four years. One such challenge is the fact that home automation solutions are expensive, and many users are reluctant make the initial investment.

For instance, a typical smart home system with basic offerings ranges from $773.6-$1,547.7, with more sophisticated solutions surpassing $15,000. This initial cost is compounded by post-system installation service and maintenance charges, which makes it hard for users to see a decent ROI.

Increased demand for energy conservation systems

In the UK, an average household spends around $2,000 on electricity bills. This has led to an increase in the demand for energy conservation. The UK plans to connect 53 million smart gas and electricity meters—next gen meters that help control energy consumption, and provide the opportunity remote meter reading—in UK homes by 2020.

Smart homes rely on technologies like programmable thermostats, occupation detectors and motion sensors, solar-powered products, and zone-based thermostats to conserve energy and improve efficiency.

These systems use power timers and monitors to provide real-time feedback about the amount of energy consumed, keep track of appliances that consume more energy and their duration of energy use, and allow uses to set timers to run large appliances strategically, in order to prevent energy waste.

Higher adoption of smart home systems could help household energy bills in the UK decrease by $250 per year, and drive significant uptake of smart home systems over the projected period.