Chennai Householders Revealed as India’s ‘Gadget Geeks’: Mahindra Lifespaces

Chennai householders are officially the nation’s ‘gadget geeks’, possessing the highest volume of personal technology and gadgets within their homes, while those from Pune possess the least, according to new study published today.

The light-hearted insight published by Mahindra Lifespace Developers Limited (‘MLDL’), the real estate and infrastructure development arm of the Mahindra Group, is part of a new series – Mahindra ‘Life-slices’ – offering unique insights into Indians’ living patterns, lifestyles, and homes.

The inaugural study aimed to understand the future needs of home buyers and the level of adoption of smart-home devices in today’s homes. It was undertaken amongst over 1,000 householders in seven cities in India.

Respondents were questioned about the presence of various technologies within their homes ranging from smart TVs, smart lighting, and smart watches, to voice-activated devices and air purifiers.  Responses were collated and aggregated according to the nature of the technology to calculate a ranking for each householder and, subsequently, each city. The higher the ranking, the greater the concentration of technology and gadgets within the city’s homes.

On this basis, from a theoretical maximum of 6,800 points (i.e. if every home in the city possessed each and every type of device), Chennai householders topped the ranking with 4,255 points. It reflects the highest average presence of innovative smart-home gadgets such as VR glasses, VR headsets, smartwatches, and intelligent systems - Amazon Echo and Google Home. This compares with a national average ranking of 3,191.

Chennai’s ranking reflects the fact that 86% of local householders own VR glasses (compared to a national average of 50%), 77% own smartwatches (vs 43% national average), and 78% own wireless charging devices in their homes (57%).

These insights are corroborated by other research confirming Chennai’s ‘Gadget geek’ credentials. For instance, Chennai has the highest internet and smart-phone penetration and also exhibits high literacy with respect to technology as compared to other cities. Additionally, as per the latest report by Ookla, Chennai also has the fastest mean download speed for a fixed broadband connection.

According to the study findings, the ‘domestic geek’ mantle then passes to Hyderabad recording a score of 3,542 points, with more than two-thirds (68%) of the city’s householders owning VR glasses, 71% owning wireless charging devices, and 76% owning at least one ‘Google Home’ device.

Surprisingly, in third place was Bangalore with a score of 3,476, often described as the ‘Silicon Valley of India’ and actually containing the highest number of techies and startup businesses. The city has a high influx of millennials in search of white-collar jobs due to the presence of IT and tech companies. This suggests that the tech-savvy nature has created a significant demand for smart devices even within the home space. Its household tech adoption closely follows that of Hyderabad with 63% Bengaluru householders owning VR glasses, 66% owning smart lighting devices, and 58% owning wireless charging devices in their homes.

Pune and Mumbai featured lowest on the list of the owners of smart-home devices with 2,083 and 3,013 points respectively. Mumbai stood at the penultimate position as 48% of householders owning Smartwatches, 41% owned Amazon Echo, and 48% owned a smart lighting system at their homes. Pune came last with least tech-savvy householders and only 23% owned google chrome cast, 31% owned wireless charging devices, and 27% owned smartwatches.

Sunil Sharma, Chief Customer Officer, Mahindra Lifespaces, said, “Increasing affordability of data plans & wider choice of data based options – both devices & content, has resulted in most smart home gadgets being Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled. People are looking to raise convenience & quality of life by raising the tech levels of their home with the latest and innovative gadgets. The homebuyers are now seeking homes compatible with smart home functions as it eases their living in today’s fast-paced world & make it richer.”

He went onto add that, although the survey is light-hearted in nature, it offers some interesting and valuable insights on Indian homes and lifestyles.

“These are the first findings from our ‘Life-slices’ series where we’ll be revealing insights and anecdotes about the way Indians live today, their aspirations for the future and how we – within the real estate sector – can best meet them.”

A few other highlights:

• Chennai householders owned the highest volume of smart-home gadgets i.e. Seven. The poplar devices at homeowners included Smart TV, Smart Lighting, Smartwatches, VR Headset + Glasses and Wireless charging devices

• Bengaluru and Hyderabad have an average of six smart-home gadgets per house• The average number of smart home gadgets in Mumbai was five while in Pune it was four

• Pan India, Chennai residents had the highest number of VR Glasses (86%) while only 16% of Gurgaon residents had VR Glasses

• Gurgaon residents had the highest number of air purifiers (84%) followed by Bengaluru (54%)

Survey methodology: As per the technological complexity, each gadget was assigned a weightage. The gadgets considered, in the descending order of weightage are as follows, VR glasses, VR Headset, Smart watches, Google Home/Amazon Echo, Amazon fire stick /Google Chrome Cast, Wireless charging devices, Smart Lighting, Projectors/ LED Projectors, Smart TV and Air Purifiers. The weightage was then multiple with the percentage of house holders owning each of these devices.