Technicolor said its struggling set-top and gateway division rallied to a 4.9% year-over-year sales increase in the second half of 2018.

This good news came after the Paris-based technology firm experienced a 13.6% decline in sales in the first half of the year. The division was subsequently put up for sale.

For the year, connected home saw a 4.7% revenue drop to $2.52 billion.

Technicolor said its CPE business was hurt by lower video demand from clients Charter Communications and AT&T, as well as severe component shortages on deliveries.

However, the vendor claimed to be the sole supplier of DOCSIS 3.1 gateways to Comcast and its various technology syndication partners. The company also started shipping DOCSIS 3.1 equipment to Charter last year.

Technicolor has had talks in recent months with a number of potential suitors for its connected home division, including private equity firm Bain Capital. 

In a move that will shore up its own lineup of smart home products, Amazon has put up more than $1 billion to acquire Ring, a maker of connected video doorbells, cameras and security systems, Reuters reported.  

The addition of Ring’s product set will expand Amazon's business focused on Alexa-powered smart speakers, and enable the company to heat up competition with Google, which has its own A.I.-driven assistant and lineup of smart speakers and recently integrated Nest into the Google hardware team.

That retail competition also extends to Apple and its new HomePod smart speaker, and Netgear, which is spinning out Arlo, a unit that makes connected security cameras.

“Ring’s home security products and services have delighted customers since day one. We’re excited to work with this talented team and help them in their mission to keep homes safe and secure,” Amazon said in its statement to Reuters, without confirming the price it paid for Santa Monica-based Ring.

Founded in 2012, Ring has raised about $209.2 million, according to Crunchbase.

Home tech enthusiasts cite "peace of mind" as the main reason to invest in smart home technology.

That is according to a new Scripps Networks Interactive survey of 612 homeowners; the study also found that homeowners are often wooed to smart home tech via a gift.

Scripps said personal recommendations are the top driver of home tech buy, and that getting a tech gift "feels" like a recommendation from a friend.

The survey, drawn from Scripps's panel of self-described "home enthusiasts," was conducted in October 2017.

Almost three quarters of respondents said they "love" having the latest and greatest in home tech, like the Amazon Echo or devices from Nest. An equal percentage said they thought that home tech made them better parents.

A Nest for the New Nest
The survey found that three "life events" help prompt connected home purchases: home renovations, moving into a new home and a boost in household income.

But while homeowners want all that new gear, they don't want it advertising itself. One of the draws of the devices is that they are seamless and thus somewhat "forgettable ... in that physically and psychologically unobtrusive devices allow the household to operate in a focused and balanced manner, free of technological complication," a Scripps spokesperson said.

Demand for smart home tech is lower in the kitchen, however; there it is considered a "nice-to-have" rather than a must-have. More than a third of respondents said they were not interested in connected kitchen appliances and did not see much utility beyond the "gee whiz" factor.

The global smart home device market will increase to $31.4 billion in 2018 from $27.5 billion in 2017, and will almost double by 2022 to more than $53 billion, according to data aggregator Statistica.

comScore said it has launched a new product called Connected Home that measures consumer usage of devices linked to the internet and home networks, including computers, mobile phones, tablets, streaming sticks, smart TVs, thermostats and other appliances.

It's comScore’s first syndicated product based on its Total Home Panel, which measures device usage within the home. The Total Home Panel will also be a part of comScore cross-platform TV measurement products.

Subscribers to comScore Connected Home will get data on device penetration, usage frequency, engagement time, household demographics, manufacturer and brand market share and cross device activity patterns.

comScore has been in a bit of a funk since last year when it announced an investigation into the way it had accounted for certain non-monetary transactions. Since then senior executives have left, the company has been delisted from NASDAQ and has spent more than $39 million on consultants to try to get its financial records in shape.

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