Sep 18, 2026 2 min read

Good Enough — Batteries, Beta Tests, and Plugins

Hey folks, Josh here. This week's got a little bit of everything: a tool-cost gut check, a new streaming platform to keep an eye on, and a quick open-source update. Let's get into it.

I'm also trying out a different format for the newsletter going forward. Something that'll be a bit more informal and a way that I think will become the format for the near future.

The Real Cost of Going Cordless

I finally did the actual math on corded vs. cordless tools. Pulled up a DeWalt circular saw, corded and cordless, side by side, and added it up.

One tool, one battery, and you're already past $400. Add a second battery and a charger, and you're closing in on a thousand bucks for a single tool, before you even buy a second tool in the same ecosystem. Two batteries deep into DeWalt or Milwaukee, and you're locked into that ecosystem whether you meant to be or not.

I still lean towards corded for a lot of jobs. No dead batteries, cheap fixes, and my hammer drill never runs out of charge halfway through a cinder block. Full breakdown (and a rant about HP printers) in this week's episode.

Full episode here: https://share.transistor.fm/s/bfa1d8ec

SharePlay Goes Open Beta

SharePlay, a small invite-only streaming platform, just opened to the public. Still tiny, four or five people live at once compared to Twitch, but that smallness has its own appeal: no shareholders to answer to, just a team building the thing.

My own setup doesn't work with it yet (Ecamm and SharePlay's backend don't play nice), so that's a future project. The bigger takeaway: streaming is way bigger than Twitch and YouTube. Bilibili, SOOP, and a bunch of regional platforms exist that most of us never think about, partly because Twitch has pulled out of entire countries over infrastructure costs.

Quick Hit: Owncast 0.3.0

Owncast (the open-source, self-hosted alternative to Twitch/YouTube) just shipped 0.3.0 with its first plugin system. It's day one, only a handful of community plugin ideas on GitHub so far (chat controls, polls, donations), nobody's built them yet. But the door's open.

I'm covering the update and Hetzner setup on Maker Dad Tech soon. The full episode has more on other streaming platforms worth knowing.

Owncast plugin ideas - https://github.com/owncast/owncast/discussions