The installed base of smart thermostats will reach 18.3% of U.S. broadband households this year, according to a forecast from Kagan, the media research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence.
The firm says that 19.6 million smart thermostats were installed as of the end of last year. That cut heating and cooling by 1.4% compared to usage without the technology. The forecasts that 38.3 million — less than one-third of broadband households — will have this equipment in 2026. If realized, the nation would cut energy consumption by 3.0%, which is 15.5 terawatt-hours.
Kagan says that the projections even if met, would “leav[e] a substantive energy conservation opportunity untapped at the macro level.”
Kagan expects a new affordable price bracket, along with persistent concerns around rising temperatures, to push adoption, growing shipments at a 15.2% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2021 through 2026.
If smart thermostats reach every home with HVAC by the end of the forecast, annual space heating and cooling energy consumption could be cut by 9.0% or 45.4 terawatt-hours, the researchers said. That’s the equivalent of the total energy used in Mississippi in 2020, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.
Kagan expects smart thermostat shipments to rise 12% this year. Consumers will be driven by the desire to cut consumption due to inflation and heat wave concerns.
In February, Comcast’s 2021 Wi-Fi Trends Report found that Xfinity households connected more than 2.5 million IoT devices in 2021, a 31-fold increase compared to 2018. Connected thermostats—along with devices such as connected cameras and doorbells – were included in the assessment.
Back in 2016, Navigant Research said that the market for connected thermostats and associated software would reach $4.4 billion in 2025
