Nowadays the concept of intelligent homes and smart technologies are spreading out and becoming a vital strategy to optimize the energy performance. Specially that the internet is available to all our life aspects including educational system, health care, banking, commercial, industries, mobile applications, etc. The energy sector is one of the important domains to use the internet in the supply and demand sides. As the buildings consume two third of electricity globally, the real-time monitoring, by using the internet, is one of the key factors to manage the energy consumption and to optimize the buildings' performance. Accordingly, the buildings' systems have utilized the information technology's revolution in the last decade in several manners. One of the very interesting synergies is that developing relationship between the energy monitoring and the Internet of Things (IoT) for most of buildings' sensors, energy meters and building automation systems. These new technologies interact effectively with the Smart Home Energy Management System. It increases its value and ensures securing tangible benefits. As shown through the findings of this study, the level of buildings intelligence will significantly contribute the improvement of energy performance. Not only, the energy demand and the use of energy will be smartly efficient. As a result, the renewable energy systems in such smart homes will be a cost-effective option and the probability to build a net zero energy home becomes materialized and affordable economically. This paper reviews the latest technologies and telecommunication techniques that used in the homes to monitor energy performance. It also discusses a case study in Riyadh - Saudi Arabia about smart home's technologies, and the impact of using the renewable energy to improve the energy performance compared to the energy benchmark. The main focus will be on the smart technologies; interface and integration of the meters, sensors and monitoring systems with the home energy management system (HEMS). The findings of this paper outline that the smart home in practice provides the ability to the house to be net zero energy building. Especially that it reduces the power demand and improve the energy performance by 37% better than ASHRAE standards for family villas sector. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.