Programming in the Sun: A Year with the Daylight Computer Oskar Wickström
I’ve been hinting on X/Twitter about my use of the Daylight DC-1 as a programming environment, and after about a year of use, it’s time to write about it in longer form. This isn’t a full product review, but rather an experience report on coding in sunlight. It’s also about the Boox Tab Ultra – which has a different type of display – and how it compares to the DC-1 for my use cases.
This is not a sponsored post.
Neovim in Termux on the Daylight DC-1.
Why do I even bother, you might ask? Sunlight makes me energetic and alert, which I need when I work. Living in the Nordics, 50% of the year is primarily dark, so any direct daylight I can get becomes really important. I usually run light mode on my Framework laptop during the day, but working in actual daylight with these displays, or plain old paper, is even better.
The Setup
Here are the main components of this coding environment:
Daylight DC-1: an Android-based tablet with a “Live Paper” display (Reflective LCD, not E-Ink)
8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard: a mechanical Bluetooth-enabled keyboard, with Kailh key switches and USB-C charging and optional connection
Termux: a terminal emulator for Android, with a package collection based on apt
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