The 21st century is witnessing a fast-paced digital revolution. A significant trend is that cyber and physical environments are being unprecedentedly entangled with the emergence of Internet of Things (IoT). IoT has been widely immersed into various domains in the industry. Among those areas where IoT would make significant impacts are building construction, operation, and management by facilitating high-class services, providing efficient functionalities, and moving towards sustainable development goals. So far, IoT itself has entered an ambiguous phase for industrial utilization, and there are limited number of studies focusing on the application of IoT in the building industry. Given the promising future impact of IoT technologies on buildings, and the increasing interests in interdisciplinary research among academics, this paper investigates the state-of-the-art projects and adoptions of IoT for the development of smart buildings within both academia and industry contexts. The wide-ranging IoT concepts are provided, covering the necessary breadth as well as relevant topic depth that directly relates to smart buildings. Current enabling technologies of IoT, especially those applied to buildings and related areas are summarized, which encompasses three different layers based on the conventional IoT architecture. Afterwards, several recent applications of IoT technologies on buildings towards the critical goals of smart buildings are selected and presented. Finally, the priorities and challenges of successful and seamless IoT integration for smart buildings are discussed. Besides, this paper discusses the future research questions to advance the implementation of IoT technologies in both building construction and operation phases. The paper argues that a mature adoption of IoT technologies in the building industry is not yet realized and, therefore, calls for more attention from researchers in the relevant fields from the application perspective. •The common technologies of Internet of Things (IoT) used in the building industry on a layering basis are summarized.•The potentials of IoT technology application towards the development of smart buildings are recognized and highlighted.•An outline for developing IoT architecture to implement critical functionalities of smart buildings is provided.•Current trends and priorities, and future research areas of IoT application in the building industry are presented.