Smart and automated homes are closely related to my research so I'll chime in on this. Even though the technology exists to do lots of cool things no one has built a modular system that you can mix and match pieces to.
Right now each "smart" feature would be completely separate from the rest so you can't amortize the cost of each one. So if you want a home security system, an automatic door and window locker, and an item tracking system you will need to pay for and install three separate systems. Since the utility of some of those systems just isn't that great people only install the system that has the highest economic benefit -- the home security system. Everything else costs too much for too little benefit.
Video chat has much better adoption for close relationships with people that don't live near by. Family moving away, long distance dating etc. Overall communication is a lot more nuanced than most people think. Just consider text messages.
What science fiction in 1920 thought people would hold phones that let them call other people and instead chose to write the message down and then send it. Yet, often people find text messages far more useful than a phone call.
Don't know about you, but while I knew video phones existed a long time back, almost all of my calls with my parents recently have been over Facetime, now that there's a simple, intuitive way for us to use it (I bought them an iPad). Automated homes may just be a technology waiting to be designed right, not just solved. After all, home is our retreat from...well, anywhere, really. Design matters if you're going to be encountering it all your life.
Automated homes seem to be like video phones: common in science-fiction, we now have them, but they (curiously) aren't used that much.