Dive Brief:

• ComScore announced the launch of comScore Connected Home, a syndicated service that tracks consumer behavior across multiple internet-connected devices including computers, mobile phones, tablets, streaming sticks, smart TVs, Internet of Things devices (IoT) and more such as home security and connected appliances, per a company press release.
• The audience measurement company's Total Home Panel includes more than 12,500 households. 
• Initial results from the panel include that Apple has the largest media device market share among connected households at 241%, followed by Microsoft at 22.2%, Samsung at 13%, Amazon at 6.8% and LG at 4.1%.

Dive Insight:

The term connected home is often limited more toward smart home devices, but the comScore product takes a more expansive view by including home computers, mobile devices and gaming consoles that have long been connected to home internet networks.

The goal of the new product is to provider marketers and other businesses insight into how these products are used in the home today by measuring device penetration, usage frequency, engagement time, household demographics, OEM and OS market share as well as cross-device activity patterns.  

The new service arrives at a time when more consumers are cutting the cord for traditional TV viewing and spending more time watching on connected devices at home. By providing an independent measurement of audience for these devices, the data could help marketers better assess if and how much of their resources they want to throw at over-the-top viewing and other connected home engagement opportunities and well as where to invest.

"There are more screens and other connected devices in homes than ever before, yet there have been major gaps in understanding how consumers interact with this technology," said Dan Hess, executive vice president of products at comScore, in the press release. "Whether our clients seek to understand new dynamics of media consumption such as over-the-top delivery, gaming and other entertainment options, or IoT adoption, this new service is a major step forward in enabling removing these blind spots."

In other recent news in connected home space, Gartner released a survey that found it was firmly entrenched in early adopter phase with only 10% of homes reporting having a connected home device. Obviously this survey defined connected home as the more limited smart home devices and didn’t include computers, mobiles devices or gaming consoles.