UK Future of Tech in the Home: 2026
Smart home technology is already part of everyday life for most UK consumers, with 84% owning at least one smart home device.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- What you need to know
- Outlook for tech in the home
- Opportunities
- Adaptive proactive systems are the future
- Turn energy optimisation into a compelling payback story
- Boost relevancy through living situation-led merchandising
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THE MARKET
- Market factors
- Persistent cautious mentality means value needs to be compelling
- Energy price uncertainty continues
- Home ownership remains stable, but housing composition is shifting
- Graph 1: England housing tenure, 2020/21-2024/25
- Growing knowledge about AI is accompanied by growing concern
- Graph 2: knowledge of AI, 2023-25
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THE CONSUMER
- Lower the barrier to adopt smart home technology
- Over eight in 10 own a smart home device
- Leverage smart TVs to bring more shoppers to the smart home market
- Graph 3: repertoire of smart home ownership (NET), by age. 2026
- Boost appeal of less matured categories
- Graph 4: annual change in smart home device ownership, 2025-26
- Use refurbished options to lower the cost barrier
- Graph 5: ‘I would be open to buying pre-owned smart home devices (eg second-hand, refurbished)’, by repertoire of smart devices owned, 2026
- Urge consumers to look beyond cost with compelling propositions
- Cost is the biggest barrier to smart home device adoption
- Make the total cost of ownership more accessible
- Show tangible benefits to justify smart home investment
- Graph 6: top barriers to adding/adding more smart home devices (select), by repertoire of smart home devices, 2026
- Adapt messaging focus by device type
- Graph 7: important attributes when buying smart home devices, by type of smart home device, 2026
- Enhance security measures
- The future of automation
- Consumers play a more active role in device control
- Emerging interest in screenless control, but screen-based interaction needs to stay
- Graph 8: ‘I would like all device control in my home to become screenless (eg voice command, control via hand gestures)’, by age, 2026
- Voice commands simplify control, while automated set up still struggles to gain traction
- Graph 9: methods to control smart home devices, by age, 2026
- Make the smart home an adaptive helper through selective automation
- Allow consumers to be hands-on when it matters
- Help consumers make the best choices
- Non-homeowners are well-positioned to benefit from additional support
- Graph 10: ‘I find it hard to know which smart home devices could be useful to me’, by housing situation, 2025-26
- Use living-situation merchandising to increase smart home relevance
- Graph 11: ‘I prefer experimenting with different smart home devices in person (eg in-store) to researching them online’, by lifestage, 2026
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INNOVATION AND MARKETING
- Conversational AI makes smart home control more accessible
- Homey in ChatGPT
- AI becomes more ‘huma’
- Smarter real-time energy management
- Face detection gets smarter
- Robots reduce labour at home
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APPENDIX
- Market definition
- The consumer
- Consumer research questions
- Consumer research methodology
- Other data source methodologies
- Mintel Spark
- Abbreviations
Smart home technology is already part of everyday life for most UK consumers, with 84% owning at least one smart home device. However, adoption remains uneven, dominated by entertainment devices such as smart TVs and smart speakers.
Cost is a key barrier to adoption, including device and running costs, while many remain sceptical about whether the benefits that smart technology offers can outweigh the risks. At the same time, AI is becoming a defining feature of future smart home innovation, from conversational assistants to proactive systems and household robots. Yet growing knowledge of AI is accompanied by growing concern, particularly around privacy, data security and loss of control.
The biggest opportunities will come from making smart home technology easier to adopt and easier to understand, with energy efficiency and data protection being central to product propositions. There are opportunities to explore accessible entry points through refurbished devices and subscription models and to merchandise products around real-life living situations rather than device categories to boost relevancy.
This Report Looks at the Following Areas:
- Market background and factors affecting the future of technology in the home
- The current smart home setup and how that changes over time
- Methods used to control devices and the future of home automation
- Barriers to smart home ownership and how to encourage consumers to look beyond device costs
- How consumer priorities vary by smart home device types
- How can brands and retailers support consumers in the smart home device purchase experience
Market Definitions
For the purposes of this Report the labels ‘smart’ and ‘connected’ refer to a family of features, including home automation and adaptive behaviour powered by machine learning; connectivity with other devices (including, but not limited to, a user’s smartphone) via various protocols (including WiFi and Bluetooth); and providing users with data on device usage (eg energy consumption data).
Devices referred to as ‘smart’ and/or ‘connected’ may have some but not all of these features. The connected home products included within the scope of Mintel’s consumer research for this Report are:
- Voice-controlled speaker (eg Amazon Echo, Google Home)
- WiFi/Bluetooth smart speaker (eg Sonos Play – excluding voice-controlled)
- Smart thermostat (eg Nest Thermostat, Hive Heating)
- Smart plugs (eg Hive Active Plug)
- Smart home sensors (ie smart motion sensor, smart window sensor)
- Smart security camera (eg Ring Spotlight Cam – excluding as part of a smart doorbell)
- Smart doorbell (eg Ring Video Doorbell)
- Smart/WiFi connected fridge/freezer
- Smart/WiFi connected vacuum cleaner (eg iRobot Roomba)
- Smart/WiFi connected washing machine
- Smart/WiFi connected lightbulbs (eg Philips Hue)
- Smart/WiFi connected locks
- Smart/WiFi connected air purifier
- Smart TV
- Smart/WiFi connected smoke detector
- Smart/WiFi connected water leak detector
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