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For Tolkien (who assigns the Hobbits things like watermills, which use pulleys and gears), the dividing line is pretty clearly the use of chemical combustion for motive force: external combustion (steam and by extension electricity) and internal combution (gasoline and diesel). He had no problem with 'natural' power sources: wind, water, gravity and muscle- even if mechanisms were involved. After all, Bilbo had a clock!
So draw the line at Newcomen. (I note that in the last illustration to The Hobbit, Bilbo is dressed in clothes of about 1700).
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it.
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