The Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA) has announced the availability of the 2008 State of the Connected Home Market Study.

Among its findings:

• The number of households in the U.S. reporting that the connected home concept is ‘very appealing’ remained at just under 25 per cent — the same level as researchers found when the same question was asked back in 2005. The Canadian figure was also stable at 14 per cent.
• On the other hand, about 75 per cent of North American households polled are ‘not opposed’ to the idea compared to a result of 66 per cent in 2005. That indicates a definite trend but gives little hope for any kind of immediate boom in the sector.
• Ninety per cent of households surveyed have highspeed Internet.
• More than 50 per cent have two or more personal computers.
• Forty per cent have home networks.

The study was funded by Whirlpool, Bell Canada, Cisco Systems, Direct Energy, Hewlett-Packard Company, Legrand, Leviton Manufacturing, Microsoft Corporation, Procter & Gamble, the Z-Wave Alliance and Zensys — giving you a good idea of exactly who expects to benefit from if and when the connected home concept finally takes off.

An executive summary of the study is available at the CABA Web site. Note: It’s in .PPT format, so you’ll need MS PowerPoint or a PowerPoint viewer to read it.