Evaluating the state of any market is a tricky thing during a pandemic — things are changing daily; new technologies are being explored; the future is unknown; and it’s difficult to look back at the past clearly.

A continuing strong economy, end user desires to do more with their access control systems and increasing interest in new technologies, integrations and models all led to a positive outlook in 2019 and a general feeling of optimism for 2020, with a few notes of caution.

The video surveillance market is ripe with opportunity, according to sources. Many security integrators and manufacturers realized strong revenues for 2019 and are even more optimistic for 2020.

Is the smart home market maturing and stabilizing, showing a clear path forward for security dealers wanting to capitalize on the new desires of homeowners to interact with many areas of their home life, including security? Not exactly. But there are definitely signs that it has moved to another level of adoption and interest, making the time ripe for action on the part of those who want to adjust their business model to capture opportunities and revenue in this fast-growing space.

When asked about their biggest challenge in the coming year, security integrators and manufacturers alike often say the same thing: attracting workers.

For decades the dominant story in access control has been that it was a victim of its own success: that is, customers were reluctant to change out what was still working — even 15 or 20 years on — and didn’t see the benefit in spending the money to upgrade, even for significantly new or different features.

The U.S. fire market was steady and strong in 2018, with an equal or better outlook for 2019.

Doomsday didn’t happen. For all the concern many security dealers have shown in recent years — particularly about the rapidly changing residential market — all indicators seem to finally point to what was always the hope in the midst of the fear: that all the new entrants, technologies and business models would start to grow the pie for all.

The video surveillance market is strong and will continue to grow. It is less a lumbering giant, though, and more an agile athlete, able to pivot and adapt — it just happens to be the largest one on the security court.

To tweak a line from a famous Frank Sinatra song: 2017, it was a very good year. It was a very good year for connected homes, that is. Massive amounts of advertising from big players inside and outside the security space, a rapidly advancing technology landscape, and an avid interest from homeowners at all economic levels led to a connected home space that is growing by leaps and bounds.