ABI Research put hard numbers to what clinicians and families have felt for years: the home is becoming the next front line of care.
Its forecast suggests smart home healthcare device shipments will rise from 124 million units in 2026 to 170 million by 2030, a CAGR of 8.1%—evidence that remote monitoring is shifting from “nice to have” to “how care is delivered”.
The drivers are as clear as they are urgent. Rapidly aging populations, rising chronic disease prevalence, and healthcare cost pressure are forcing systems to look beyond episodic appointments.
At the same time, better network infrastructure makes connectivity less of a hurdle and more of an enabler. In practice, this means more patients can be monitored in the places they feel safest—home—while clinicians spend more time on patients who truly need in-person attention.
ABI Research’s Matthias Foo captured the operational promise: demand for connected healthcare is being pulled forward by the need for disease management and remote in-home monitoring. He argues that these devices deliver value by working smoothly with mobile apps, helping patients and healthcare providers track and interpret health data with greater convenience and accuracy.
What makes the forecast compelling is that it is not just theoretical. Vendor performance is increasingly aligned with the same direction of travel. Abbott reported double-digit organic Medical Devices sales growth in 2025, reinforcing that medical-device demand is strengthening—not fading.
Meanwhile, Dexcom disclosed full-year 2025 revenue growth of 16% year-on-year in its filings, consistent with continued momentum in connected CGM adoption.
Connectivity choices are also shaping the category’s reality. Bluetooth remains dominant because it pairs readily with smartphones and tends to support longer battery life than Wi‑Fi—an advantage for wearables and in-home devices that must operate reliably day after day.
ABI Research further notes that features such as Bluetooth Channel Sounding (CS) can add positioning value, enabling more accurate tracking of patient movement.
Yet the most important trend may be independence from the smartphone as a dependency. In April 2025, Medical Guardian introduced cellular-enabled Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) devices—such as blood pressure cuffs, pulse oximeters, and scales—designed to support continuous monitoring even without Wi‑Fi or smartphones, feeding data into its MGEngage360 platform.
The “smart home” opportunity is converging with clinical need, connectivity design, and measurable vendor growth—setting the stage for scale by 2030.
