It’s official: 2017 was the year of the internet of things. With tech giants such as Apple piling into connected homes and established players including Centrica staking their bets on these technologies, utilities ignore them at their peril. The smart meter rollout began in earnest last year, giving customers, whose enthusiasm for smart devices in their homes is still up for debate, a gateway into managing their energy in a new way. For utilities, the opportunities posed by new ways to harvest and interpret data are almost as challenging as the threats, namely that of cyber security.