Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) play a crucial part in various intelligent computing systems, but ensuring Quality of Service (QoS), energy efficiency, and security poses significant challenges. This review paper aims to present a comprehensive analysis of the present research landscape in WSNs, with a specific focus on QoS, energy efficiency, and security issues (Kaur and Mir in Int J Comput Appl 113(18), 2015 [1]). Being the crucial component of the environment, monitoring, healthcare, smart cities, and business automation need efficient data transfer with minimal latency, high throughput, and the ability to support decision-making processes; hence the requirement for quality of service (QoS). Meanwhile, considering the distance of sensor nodes and battery power, it is important to solve the power consumption problem, thus new solutions for energy-saving communication, data collection, and power management are needed. Additionally, it is important to protect WSNs against eavesdropping, data tampering, and denial of service attacks, and the application of effective security techniques such as encryption, authentication, and techniques for detecting intrusions is essential to protect sensitive and confidential information. Solving these issues is essential for the successful deployment and continued rise of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) in various applications.