Increasingly, home video entertainment devices such as digital HDTVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, and all versions of pay-TV set-top boxes (STBs) are coming to the market Wi-Fi-enabled -- so that devices can connect to the web and to each other.
According to the latest market study by NPD In-Stat, their research shows that the evolution of the home network will drive the number of in-home video WLAN-enabled video devices to approach 600 million in 2015.
"Wi-Fi has moved from a nice-to-have feature to a must-have feature as it provides the connectivity necessary to support IP-based video content." says Frank Dickson, Vice President of Research at NPD In-Stat.
It's important to note though that Wi-Fi is growing from being simply about getting content from a network to devices, to sharing content between devices -- as Wi-Fi evolves from being a network-centric connectivity standard to one that enables peer-to-peer (P2P) device connectivity.
New innovations such as Wi-Fi Display and Wi-Fi Direct will fundamentally change the way that digital media content is moved and shared in the home.
Some of the NPD In-Stat market study findings include:
- Digital TVs will reach a 40 percent WLAN-attach rate by 2015.
- In 2014, mobile hotspots will have an 802.11n attach rate of 98 percent.
- Over 28 million WLAN-enabled Blu-ray players will ship in 2013.
- The 802.11ac standard will achieve an attach rate in mini-notebooks of 23 percent in 2015.
