Technology can help someone manage a chronic illness, conserve limited energy or live more independently. It can also turn switching on a light, paying for parking or using an appliance into an account, an update and a failed Wi-Fi connection. Modern technology works best when it expands our choices—not when it becomes the only choice.
Watching Jaiden Animations’ video Y’all mind if I complain for 15 minutes? left me thinking about how much work is now required to make supposedly convenient technology behave. It was not one dramatic failure that stayed with me. It was the accumulation: another app, another password, another account and another object refusing to perform its basic function until it had spoken to a server somewhere.
We were promised that technology would remove effort from modern life. Increasingly, it appears to redistribute that effort back to us in smaller, more irritating pieces.
A lightbulb needs pairing. A television wants an update. A car park requires an app that may not accept your card. A restaurant replaces its menu with a QR code. An appliance asks for access to the home Wi-Fi before revealing features that were advertised on the box. None of these demands is enormous by itself. Together, they turn ordinary life into unpaid technical support.
The problem is not that these products contain technology. The problem begins when connection stops being an optional convenience and becomes permission to use something we already bought.
Convenience for whom?
App-based design is often presented as progress because it can be cheaper and easier for the organisation providing it. The customer supplies the phone, the internet connection, the battery, the data and much of the administration. A business can remove a physical control, paper form, staffed desk or payment machine and call the result streamlined.
The inconvenience has not disappeared. It has changed hands.
Ofcom’s 2026 research found that 6% of UK adults did not have internet access at home. Among those who were online, one in five relied solely on a smartphone. Internet access alone did not guarantee confidence or full participation: 21% were classed as “narrow” users, meaning they used only a limited range of online activities.
Those figures matter whenever an app is treated as universal. A person may not own a suitable phone. Their data may have run out, their battery may be low or the signal may be poor. They may find small screens difficult because of sight, dexterity or cognitive access needs. They may understand one familiar website but struggle when every company invents a different account, interface and verification process.
This is not confined to optional purchases. Age UK London’s research into council services found continuing gaps in offline access to Council Tax reductions, Housing Benefit and Blue Badge applications. An “offline” alternative is not truly offline if it still requires somebody to download a form or provide an email address.
Digital access can be immensely useful. Digital-only access is something else: a locked door with an app beside it.
When technology gives something back
It would be dishonest, however, to pretend that older or simpler always means better. For many disabled people and people living with chronic illness, technology is not an unnecessary complication. It can be the difference between depending on another person and completing a task independently.
That distinction is personal for me. My hearing aids connect by Bluetooth to an app on my phone. In that context, the app is not a novelty added to an ordinary object; it supports technology I rely on to make conversations and media more accessible. I also know what it means to ration energy around chronic illness. A device that saves a journey across a room or removes one small physical task is not a gimmick when energy is limited; it can leave something in reserve for the parts of life that matter.
Environmental-control systems can allow somebody with limited movement to operate lights, heating, doors, a television or an alarm through a switch, voice command, joystick or eye-gaze control. Smartphones can provide captions or turn speech into text. Smart plugs and voice-controlled lights can save someone from repeatedly crossing a room when pain, fatigue, breathlessness or unpredictable mobility makes that journey costly.
Medical technology can do more than save effort. Continuous glucose monitors can track glucose throughout the day and night, show whether levels are rising or falling and warn the wearer of high or low readings. NICE says this can help adults with type 1 diabetes respond more quickly to changes and reduce the burden associated with hypoglycaemia. Hybrid closed-loop systems can go further by using glucose readings to help adjust insulin delivery.
These devices show what good technology looks like. It performs a meaningful task, responds to an actual need and returns some measure of control to the person using it.
That does not make connected health technology beyond criticism. Devices can be expensive, uncomfortable or overwhelming. Alerts can become another demand on a person who already has to think about their condition throughout the day. A phone may be extremely helpful as a display or remote control, but dependence on a particular handset, operating system or internet service can introduce a new point of failure.
The answer is not to withhold useful technology. It is to design it around the life of the person relying on it—including the moments when the battery dies, the connection drops or an update goes wrong.
Do we still own connected objects?
A traditional appliance might eventually fail because a component wore out. A connected product can lose functions because an app is withdrawn, a cloud service closes or the manufacturer stops issuing updates. An object can remain physically intact while the system surrounding it quietly expires.
UK rules introduced in April 2024 require manufacturers of consumer connectable products to publish the minimum period for which security updates will be supplied. That is useful transparency, but it does not guarantee that every product will remain supported for as long as its physical parts might last. The National Cyber Security Centre warns that unsupported smart devices can become easier to hack or may stop working altogether.
This creates an odd version of ownership. We purchase the object, but its continued usefulness may depend on a company maintaining an app, remembering an account, keeping a subscription and allowing the product to reach its servers. The object belongs to us; part of its function remains on loan.
There are legitimate reasons for updates and connectivity. Security flaws need repairing. Remote controls can be invaluable. An app may offer detailed settings that would be impossible to fit onto a small device. But none of this explains why a kettle, bulb, washing machine or parking space should become needlessly difficult to use without a phone.
Smart should be an option
A well-designed product should keep its essential controls on the product wherever practicable. A service should provide an accessible alternative to an app. An internet outage should not prevent a household object from doing its basic job. Costs and support periods should be clear before purchase, while updates should repair products rather than make working hardware obsolete.
Genuine accessibility means offering more than one route. The person who benefits from voice control should be able to use it. The person who needs a physical button should still have one. Someone who finds an app liberating should not lose it merely because another customer prefers a manual control.
Good technology gives us time, energy or independence. Bad technology demands all three merely to perform a task that once required pressing a button.
Sources and further reading Jaiden Animations: Y’all mind if I complain for 15 minutes? Ofcom: Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes Report 2026 Age UK London: offline access to vital council services NICE: continuous glucose monitoring for adults with type 1 diabetes NICE: hybrid closed-loop systems for managing type 1 diabetes Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust: environmental controls RNID: using a smartphone with hearing loss UK Government: the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure regime National Cyber Security Centre: using smart devices safely