ToughButterCup

I'm desperate to read @Pocster's take on this. I get the feeling he's a TechnoKing

I love to loathe tech stuff. So this article from The Atlantic magazine hit home with me. The text below is ChatGPT's summary edited and reformatted by me for easier readability. “Smart Homes Are Terrible” by Jason Fried argues that the current wave of smart-home technology often makes everyday tasks more difficult rather than easier. The author, a tech industry veteran, recounts his experience staying in a high-tech rental home full of connected devices and automated systems that, in practice: Require multiple apps, tutorials, or menus just to do simple things like turn on lights or set the temperature. Have poorly designed interfaces (e.g., unlabeled panels or touchscreen controls that aren’t intuitive). Create friction, lag, and confusion instead of convenience. Make basic actions harder than with traditional analog controls (like flipping a switch or turning a dial). Ultimately, he suggests that smart homes have become too complicated and unreliable — and that simple analog solutions often work better. 🏠 Examples from the Article Lighting panels needed tutorials just to operate. Television and kitchen appliances were complicated by app requirements and obscure interfaces. Thermostats and security systems involved navigating deep menus rather than straightforward controls. A digital lock on the gate didn’t work properly, forcing use of a traditional key instead. 🧩 Broader Context (Not Just The Atlantic) To balance the article’s criticism, here’s how smart homes are generally viewed in technology and industry trends: 📈 Adoption and Trends Many homeowners expect smart technology to become essential by 2030, driven by convenience, energy efficiency, and integration. The smart-home market continues to grow with devices like smart thermostats, speakers, and security systems becoming more common. 🔧 What Smart Homes Can Do Well Remote control of devices via apps or assistants like Alexa/Google. Automated routines (e.g., adjusting heating based on presence). Potential energy savings by optimizing usage. Security and privacy vulnerabilities if devices aren’t configured securely. Interoperability issues between different brands and systems (though standards like Matter are helping). The Atlantic Magazine February 2026

Good on ya. 10 years of DIY in and still enjoying it - mostly. Good for the soul, bad for the heart pacemaker. Ermmm, BTW , you haven't got a requirement for walk-on glazing have you by any chance? 😑 I'm asking for a friend you see. He got very upset (search on this site for 'walk on' or 'walk-on' or 'walkon') about his walk-on glazing and to cut a very long story short, well errrrm, it's reportedly still in his shed . Poor bloke. With a screename like yours, you aren't a tecchie by any chance? Anyway - welcome

Good. Some really interesting and thoughtful contributions. A self-build isn't merely about nuts bolts and how not to cross-thread them. So far, it seems to me to be generally accepted that in the self build context fizz is added to normal build problems by the contexts in which we work if we could damp down the fizz - or at least some of it - we'd be more able to focus on the build sharing problems online is easier when we ask technical questions about nuts bolts and crossed threads we're more reticent about the wider contexts Unless members take courage in both hands, they usually don't post about those wider issues. Buildhub is the one space (OK, online space) where you (every single BH member)knows they're among friends ; understanding friends. People who are likely to have very similar issues to those you're facing. A suggested format for some next steps. Read loads of posts and imagine the author of those posts that somehow click with you. Those that add a little more than just: Do-this=then=that=then=this . Drop that author a PM. Waste a bit of time chatting. Smell the coffee. Suggest a WhatsApp (or whatever) maybe. Listen - read between the lines. Get to know and trust a bit more. Share some hard issues perhaps? Meet at a neutral venue? Visit And all's not going to be happily ever after. But it'll have been shared. And you will have taken an appropriate risk and -who knows- maybe won.

Mobile Self Build Shed with sarnies by @SteamyTea MBSS with @SteamyTea's sarnies.

Self Build Buddies?

You're fast. I mean proper fast @SteamyTea

Ugh. The only way I know my way round that one is - acceptance and then to become absorbed in something else. In my case self-deportation to the North Pyrenees and a couple of months walking west to east along the GR10. @Pocster's post earlier mentions his variant of the same thing.

BuilHub Umerjuncy Support Team. Imagine it; 5 old codjers totter out of a fifteenth-hand VW camper stuffed with tools and too much building foam, grab their walking sticks, and zimmers and ring the doorbell... Allo squire.... Stand back! We gottcha covered .... Dream Team @Onoff because he knows stuff @Pocster because he can bodge for Ingerlund @ProDave cos he can keep smoke inside wires @ToughButterCup because he can psychoanalyse anything @Big Jimbo cos it's his van @SteamyTea because he knows his way round a sandwich , @SimonD cos he can do maths and read a plan @jack cos he can sort out paperwork and smoothe ruffled feathers @Russell griffiths because we'll need someone who knows his way round a chainsaw. Sorted .

That's sh¡te @Onoff. Brave of you to write that post. PM me and we'll have a natter if you like. If not that's OK too. I started this thread not because I'm suffering any more than normal (for someone who's often hard-of -thinking) but because, after 10 years of it, I'm more aware of the range of challenges in self-building. And they're not all just nuts and bolts technical. Building a house or part of one or repairing one puts the average non builder through an emotional wringer. Because of the contexts in which we are forced to operate. There's so much money attached to it, there's so much fantasy attached: there's so much that we can't control. And I'll bet that most of us non builders here are at or near the peak of their professional lives. That means in our jobs we're in control - expert if you like. And here we are spending more than we would like on people and processes we don't control. Why not sit on a toboggan, put a mask on , choose a slope and cheerfully set off down the hill. Not ta worry lad, there's a snowdrift at the bottom. We've all landed in a self-build hole (snowdrift?). I've landed in several. Digging ourselves out of a hole in some sort of good order is an essential self-builders skill. And most of us avoid talking about it. Clive: zero seven seven two zero four three six two zero four. Ring me. Ian

We can't remind one another enough of that. A couple of minutes a day so @steamy says. Sure he's right.

@SteamyTea's helpful post, earlier in this thread is useful because it's brief and authoritative. By chance I also subscribe to The New Scientist, so I had a look at the link above and summarise it here (without using AI) - mainly because its so focused and easy to follow. Plan your sleep times Lighting is important : dimmer in the evenings, lighter early in the day Bedrooms cooler than living rooms (much discussion of that on BH) Avoid stress before bed (triggers are verboten) Bed is for sleeping, its not for checking BH posts Its OK to be a bit insomniac occasionally Thanks @SteamyTea

The (expletive deleted)ety(expletive deleted)ery of TACO, Stephen Miller and their lightweight crew has my whole German family bewitched. We're all here-we-go-yet-again. Miller= Goebbels and TACO is ....phhhh Like you, I've had to switch it off. The last 48 hours have been relative bliss. Put your strategy together with @Pocster's and we're getting somewhere I think. Thanks @Iceverge

Now that's interesting. What you're saying is ... don't let the build flood your brain.... In the very early part of the build, I had to run a demanding job as well as the build before Debbie got promoted, allowing me to focus entirely on the build. Come to think of it, that might well have been what allowed me to become obsessed with it. And so lose sleep. Interesting. Recently I've started planning a walk along the Pyrenees (GR10) this summer. I still have to work most days on the build, but merely planning the walk - and training for it - allows me (forces me ? ) to stop fussing about build stuff. Yer a man of hidden depths @Pocster. At least 5mm ... 😑

Exactly. Hence this thread. And I can see the... "Wot's my fookin' sleeplessness got to do with Buildhub? " argument. That's the benefit of screen names. Exactly that. You can be just anonymous enough to risk asking