Smart houses in the smart grid and the search for value-added services in the cloud of things era

The smart grid is an emerging paradigm based on the introduction of sophisticated information and communication technologies coupled with the energy grid. Most of the ongoing research worldwide is focused too much on the smart metering, energy visualization as well as potential residential device management which is usually turning ON/OFF appliances. Less attention has been given to the next step, i.e. challenging area of realizing new sophisticated applications that utilize the latest management capabilities brought to the table by advanced networked embedded devices, the huge amount of fine-grained data they offer and services that operate on such big data. We take a closer look here to some aspects beyond the smart metering, towards innovative value-added applications and services that take into consideration the “Cloud of Things” ecosystem and its capabilities. We investigate how the latter impacts the development of applications and the benefits as well as challenges it brings. We also look at the role of the smart meter and the current “war zones” among stakeholders in the residential environment, and try to shed some more light on their motivation and impact. Finally in order to make more tangible the benefits in the “Cloud of Things” era, we demonstrate an application that taps into the service ecosystem and offers decision support to electric appliance buyers.