The Internet of Things has moved past the phase of simply adding more connected gadgets. According to NXP Semiconductors wireless product marketer Charlie Ice, the next wave of IoT growth in 2026 will focus on making homes and buildings smarter, more autonomous, and easier to manage. The shift matters now because the installed base of connected devices reached 21.1 billion in 2025, a 13 percent increase year over year, per IoT Analytics' State of Enterprise IoT 2026 report. That scale turns interoperability, security, and energy orchestration from nice-to-have features into baseline expectations for any new product.
Energy management drives the next round of adoption
International regulations and rising energy costs are pushing homes and buildings toward efficiency. Intelligent energy orchestration requires the electric grid, home generators, storage systems, and major appliances to communicate through a common language and optimize consumption automatically. A tumble dryer, for example, can delay its cycle when solar panels underperform and grid demand peaks. The homeowner never touches a setting; the system decides based on price signals and generation forecasts.
The Matter smart home protocol brings this vision closer to reality by giving energy-management systems a secure, interoperable standard. In commercial buildings, KNX IoT plays a similar role across automation ecosystems. Together these protocols let a single controller talk to a heat pump, a battery wall, and an EV charger without vendor lock-in. Property managers get one dashboard instead of five.
Edge AI moves processing onto the device
Smart homes and buildings are getting more efficient through advances in AI and machine learning. The shift toward edge AI runs models directly on cameras, sensors, and gateways instead of sending data to the cloud. The result is faster responses, lower bandwidth use, lower power consumption, and better privacy because data stays on the device. A security camera that processes motion locally does not stream raw video to a server, which also cuts cloud storage costs.
Reliable wireless connectivity is the key to edge AI. Wi-Fi and Thread handle cloud connectivity and device-to-device communication, while Matter, KNX IoT, and DALI+ improve compatibility across ecosystems. When a sensor detects occupancy, the edge model can dim lights and adjust HVAC within milliseconds, something that round-trips to a cloud server cannot match.
Thread and UWB reshape how devices connect
Truly autonomous homes depend on sensors, buttons, and switches that last for years on a single battery. The Thread networking protocol delivers low-power mesh networking for Matter- and KNX IoT-enabled devices. A smart sensor can run for years on one coin-cell battery while maintaining reliable connectivity through Thread's self-healing mesh. The mesh means a single failed node does not break the network; traffic routes around it.
Thread 1.4 standardizes the way network credentials are shared with new devices and border routers, letting them join a single Thread network. It also supports extending Thread networks over Wi-Fi and Ethernet. That flexibility will make Thread more popular in 2026, especially in larger homes where a single border router cannot reach every corner.
Occupancy and spatial awareness add another layer. Ultrawideband, Wi-Fi sensing, and Bluetooth channel sounding, combined with edge processing, will enable systems to detect where people and objects are inside a building. A smart door lock can unlock automatically when it senses the homeowner at the door. A conference room can configure lighting, HVAC, and IT equipment based on who enters and how many people are present. Aliro, an emerging access standard, works alongside Matter and KNX IoT to turn these capabilities into interoperable products.
Security regulations tighten around connected devices
Recent years brought new rules worldwide. The EU enacted the Cyber Resilience Act and updated the Radio Equipment Directive to address cybersecurity threats. In the United States, the government partnered with industry to create the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark, which lets consumers identify secure IoT products quickly. The mark functions like an energy-efficiency label but for security posture.
IoT devices for smart buildings must go beyond cryptography and implement system-level security covering the device, communications, and the network. Standards like Matter, Thread, KNX IoT, and Wi-Fi include security requirements for networks and communications, while silicon-level security helps implement them at the device level. Chip vendors now ship secure boot and hardware key storage as default features rather than premium options.
Interoperability cuts complexity at scale
With hundreds of devices from different manufacturers in a single home or building, interoperability determines whether the system works or fragments. Protocols like Matter and KNX-IoT let different ecosystems interact. With KNX, any two certified devices from any vendor work together at the application level in a secure way. That promise is what keeps property developers from locking into a single vendor.
It is not clear that all manufacturers will move at the same pace. Legacy devices without Matter or Thread support will linger in buildings for years, and retrofit costs fall on property owners rather than chip vendors. A consumer who bought a smart thermostat in 2022 may not see Matter support until the next hardware revision, if ever.
The cost question for property owners
The economics of retrofitting remain the quiet obstacle behind every trend listed above. A homeowner replacing a five-year-old smart thermostat to gain Matter support pays the full hardware cost for a feature that should have been software. Commercial building owners face larger bills: ripping out proprietary lighting controls to install KNX-certified gear can run into six figures for a mid-size office. Vendors argue that energy savings offset the upfront cost within three to five years, but those projections assume electricity prices keep rising and occupants actually use the automation features. In practice, many smart building deployments deliver savings only on paper because nobody tunes the schedules after installation.
What to watch next
Semiconductor providers like NXP, along with groups like the Connectivity Standards Alliance and the KNX Association, will build on these trends through 2026. The test will be whether Matter and Thread adoption reaches the devices already installed in homes, not just new ones. If the installed base stays fragmented, the promise of autonomous buildings stays theoretical. More detail on the seven trends is available in the original NXP analysis. For related coverage, see IoT coverage on news.jualin.id.
