From electric kettles that switch themselves off when boiling, to washing machines, TV remotes and in the future increasingly automated homes, the products of the 21st century are and will be syntheses of digital and physical elements - and for the user these will become indistinguishable, just as we do not consciously think of the wire between light switch and bulb. Similar changes have happened before, as in the movement of the mechanical and electronic from factory to home. However, now the pace of change is such that waiting for craft understanding to develop is untenable, hence the need for more radical and fundamental understandings, informed by and informing praxis.