Smart cities might sound like the far future, but they are not. A simple glance at our surroundings proves that things that were fiction just a few years ago are now a reality. The devices in our life communicate with one another and receive commands remotely, creating the Internet of Things (IoT), which seems to finally be on track to becoming fast and reliable enough for large-scale adoption in cities with 5G technology.

With energy innovations quickly spreading to more areas of our lives, the future of smart home energy is quickly advancing before our eyes. We consult with experts to explore the current potential of smart home energy, what the key barriers are, and the measures that the industry can take to mitigate them ahead of time.

The pandemic may be waning, but the desire to stay out of long-term care facilities is still pressing. A third of all U.S. deaths from COVID-19 so far were connected to nursing homes, according to The New York Times. Are the high-tech devices on the market enough to usher in the future of care at home?

“If nothing else, these new standards and protocols show how much focus the tech industry is placing on IoT security. They also show how tough it will be to implement only a few standards. The IoT encompasses devices, apps, networking, clouds, and even shared data between companies. It also covers so many different risk levels that any sort of one-size-fits-all approach would never work.”

For the most part, we still explicitly direct our devices on how best to serve us, but that’s about to change. Soon, you’re going to have systems that will be proactive. Our devices are going to see and hear as we do, and they’re going to be suggesting and prompting.

Google has new smart home products planned around its A.I. Google Assistant. And as the voice assistant celebrates its 5th birthday this year, Google is going to have some new smart home products where the A.I. will presumably live.

With more and more industries making the shift to automation, it’s no surprise that the trend would eventually trickle down to the individual level and right into our cozy homes. However, with so many brands and ecosystems in place, it can quickly get confusing for the average person. That’s exactly what Samsung SmartThings aims to address.