We present a detailed review of various Home Energy Management Schemes (HEM,s). HEM,s will increase savings, reduce peak demand and Pto Average Ratio (PAR). Among various applications of smart grid technologies, home energy management is probably the most important one to be addressed. Various steps have been taken by utilities for efficient energy consumption.New pricing schemes like Time of Use (ToU), Real Time Pricing (RTP), Critical Peak Pricing (CPP), Inclining Block Rates (IBR) etc have been been devised for future smart grids.Home appliances and/or distributed energy resources coordination (Local Generation) along with different pricing schemes leads towards efficient energy consumption. This paper addresses various communication and optimization based residential energy management schemes and different communication and networking technologies involved in these schemes.