[alfor]

I imagine our home of the future with a microchip in all outlets, switch, circuit breaker, bulb, etc.

Each breaker would know the current going through it and through all sockets and bulbs. They will be able to detect the bad connection, shut off the current and report the problem, saving a lot of electric fire.

The wiring of the house will be massively reduced as they will be no need to go from switch to light. All lighting will be connected all the time, the switch will be wireless, will be just a faceplate that you stick where you want them. You will assign the switch to the light that you want, they will adjust with the time of day, etc.

Some of the heavy energy use appliances will do peak shaving to reduce the cost of the electricity bill (already in place in some areas)

[taneq]

Sounds great. None of those devices need to be talking to anything outside the home, though.

Even peak shaving can be done by simply checking the AC supply voltage. If it's starting to sag, ease off some of the heavier appliances. If it's higher than expected, now's a good time to burn some extra power.

[alfor]

I agree, they don’t really need the internet.

[oriolid]

KNX already does this without internet. The downside is that it's expensive and just as proprietary as the internet-connected smart gadgets.

[jaclaz]

There are (since several years) "bus" electrical systems, simplified, there are five wires (live+neutral+earth+a two wire "bus" ) going everywhere.

You can decide to mount in "box #1" a switch and (say) a socket, then you configure the switch in "box#1" to command light bulb #23 and the socket to be either always on or commanded by switch #18, etc..

What you are proposing is essentially removing the two wire cable to go wireless.

You need anyway the three mains cables (live+neutral+earth) to get everywhere and passing in the same pipe/tube the additional two wires cable is "no cost".

NO practical advantages, but a whole new possible sets of malfunctioning and/or vulnerabilities.

Apart from the added (and not-so-trivial) added cost of a "bus" system as compared to a traditional electric cabling(not that your dream solutions will be any cheaper), the existing solutions work, and work reliably, because by now they have existed and have been tested for many years, let's introduce a new wireless protocol and brand new microprocessors/terminal devices that offer no advantage...