The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2018–2024
Daylight DC1: the 60fps paper-like 'calm computer' that sold out its first 5,000
A 60fps paper-like 'Live Paper' tablet with full Android apps and a stylus — sunlight-readable and blue-light-free; its first ~5,000 units sold out.
Daylight Computer Co.
What it had to solve
After a 2018 Kindle epiphany, Anjan Katta concluded phones and laptops were 'dopamine slot machines' making people their worst selves. E Ink was calm but too slow for fluid use, so he self-funded years of research — burning about $300,000 — into a faster paper-like display.
How it works
Daylight Computer Co.'s DC-1 is a 10.5-inch tablet built around 'Live Paper,' a monochrome e-paper-style display that refreshes at 60fps — fast enough to scroll, zoom and watch video, but paper-like enough to read in full sunlight without flicker or blue light. Founder Anjan Katta calls it 'an analog object that happens to have digital magical capabilities' and frames it as a 'calm computer': full Android apps, stylus input, no eye strain, and an environment where scrolling loses to reading.
The idea grew from Katta's own 2018 realization after banning devices from his bedroom that a Kindle — 'a fat piece of paper' — felt like the only humane computer. E Ink was too slow, so he researched faster e-paper for years, spending about $300,000 of his own money before raising $12M from current and former Oculus, Pinterest and Dropbox executives. The DC-1 launched at $729 in May 2024, with an amber backlight, Wacom-style pen and a 'Founder's Edition' framing.
Wired profiled the DC-1 as 'the Daylight Tablet Returns Computing to Its Hippie Ideals,' praising it as a candidate for 'the first computer worth meditating with,' while noting the challenge of persuading developers to build native apps. The first run of roughly 5,000 units nearly sold out, and Daylight restructured as a Public Benefit Company, with Katta arguing that technology should serve attention and health rather than engagement metrics.
Why it lands
- It solves calm at the hardware layer — display, light and refresh rate — rather than with blocking software, so the device stays open and full-featured.
- The 60fps paper-like display answers the real objection to E Ink (slowness), keeping paper's calm without sacrificing fluid interaction.
- A founding story rooted in a personal problem gave the product a conviction that survived years of 'no' from conventional investors.
- Positioning the DC-1 as a scarce $729 'Founder's Edition' object made the philosophy part of the product itself.
What it did
The first run of about 5,000 devices nearly sold out, and Wired called it a contender for 'the first computer worth meditating with.' The company kept selling through founder batches and grew the concept into a wider line of 'caring computers' — seeding a small but real category of paper-like, distraction-first hardware.
What you can take
Make the hardware itself do the restraint: instead of policing apps with software, engineer a display and input that make addictive scrolling naturally worse and deep work naturally better.
Since then
Daylight became a Public Benefit Company with a mission to 'help technology and humanity live happily ever after,' and Katta framed the follow-up as the 'second album problem' — scaling a taste-driven hardware company without losing the taste. As of 2026 the DC-1 is still sold on daylightcomputer.com, now described as part of 'a more caring computer' ecosystem, and the company has kept iterating on the paper-display idea rather than chasing mainstream specs.
Sources
- The Daylight Tablet Returns Computing to Its Hippie Ideals
- A first look at the Daylight DC1, the tablet with a potentially game-changing display
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