It’s mid-August in the Hungarian countryside. The vines are heavy, the cicadas are relentless, and Andrew has done the thing he does every year around now: opened his calendar, sighed, and started booking flights. Two conferences are already in the diary, so consider this our early read on the smart building technology trends 2027 has in store, or at least the ones worth your attention.
So after a quieter stretch on this blog, we’re starting back up with the honest version of where our industry is heading, rather than the brochure version. Consider this a field note before the field trips.
First Stop: Smart Buildings Show, London, 14-15 October 2026
The Smart Buildings Show runs at ExCeL London this October. It calls itself the UK’s only dedicated commercial smart-buildings conference, and that commercial focus is exactly why Andrew goes.
Most smart-home coverage stops at the front door of a nice apartment. This one starts where the real complexity lives: whole buildings, building management systems, energy loads, and the unglamorous plumbing that makes a clinic or a boutique hotel actually run. We do more of that work than people realise. The Smart Clinic and the Brody House projects both sit closer to “commercial building” than “home gadget”.
There are four free theatres this year: Energy Management, Controls and Network, IT and Digital Infrastructure, and Management and Proptech. Andrew will live in the first two.
What he’s going to poke at:
- Energy management. Rising costs have turned “nice to have” into “show me the payback”. Sub-metering, demand response, and genuinely useful dashboards, not vanity screens.
- Operational technology security. The building-controls world has finally started treating cybersecurity as seriously as the home-network world has for years. About time.
For context on why this market is important: Guidehouse Insights projects intelligent-building solutions revenue reaching $119.8 billion by 2032. That is a lot of buildings that will need someone who can make the pieces talk to each other.
Then Barcelona: ISE 2027, 2–5 February
Integrated Systems Europe returns to Fira de Barcelona from 2 to 5 February 2027. ISE is the big one. It is loud, enormous, and genuinely exhausting, and it remains the best single read on where residential and commercial technology is going.
We covered ISE in 2024, and the fundamentals haven’t changed: this is where the year’s product decisions get made. The 2026 edition leaned hard into AI, smart spaces, cybersecurity, and design-led integration, plus the steady march of IP-based systems and energy efficiency. We expect 2027 to push all of that further.
One thing worth keeping in mind… For 2027, ISE has started framing privacy as a design question rather than a compliance afterthought. When your home listens, watches, and learns, “who holds that data and where does it live” stops being a footnote and becomes part of the brief. We have been saying this for a while. It’s good to see the industry catch up.
What We’re Watching
Strip away the show-floor theatre and three threads run through both events.
AI that earns its keep. The industry has talked about automation for years. AI changes the conversation from “programme this rule” to “the system figures it out”. The useful version is quiet: fewer settings to fiddle with, not more. The gimmicky version is a talking fridge. We’re watching for the former.
Interoperability, still. Matter and IP-based standards keep inching things toward gear that cooperates out of the box. We’ll believe it fully when a client’s five brands genuinely behave as one system without a workaround. Getting closer. Not there.
Security and privacy as first-class features. Andrew has argued for stronger home and building network security since long before it was fashionable. Seeing both London and Barcelona put it centre stage is a quiet vindication, and a relief.
A Word From Andrew
“I don’t go to these shows for the light displays,” Andrew says. “I go to find the two or three products that will actually make a client’s life better next year, and to catch the ones that will break in three years so we never specify them. The good stuff is rarely the loudest thing on the stand.”
That, in one sentence, is the whole job.
Coming Up
We’ll report back from both. Expect a proper takeaways post after London in October, and our usual ISE debrief once we’ve recovered in February. If you’re heading to either show, tell us. We’ll be the pair comparing control systems while everyone else queues for the coffee.
A personal note before Barcelona: we’re Control4 certified dealers, and Control4 has been part of our toolkit for years. Catching up with the team at their ISE stand is one of the real highlights, part product briefing, part reunion. If you’re a client, or a fellow integrator making the trip, come find us there. We’re always happy to talk shop with a glass of cava in hand.
Two questions for you before then. If you own or manage a commercial space, what’s the one system that still frustrates you daily? And if you’re planning a home build or renovation, what would you most want technology to handle for you?
Tell us in the comments, or reach us at via email.
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