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The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 588: Tantrum-Free Technology is Here! | Anjan Katta and Tristan Scott, Daylight Computer
00:58:33
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- [00:01]
Tristan Scott
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- [00:30]
Jenny Urch
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Urch. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I get to bring you this incredible news. This incredible news. There's a life changing thing is here where you can be doing screens without Junk Light. And screens are not so wildly addictive. And I don't even know what you would call yourselves. Like you're going to have to explain what you do. But the company is called Daylight. It's the Daylight computer. And I have to tell you before I even introduce your names, but my midwife, her name is Beth, she told me about it. She, she knew about it a way long time ago. She was on a waiting list. She was like, I am on a waiting list. This is the best thing. And so now you have, it's for adults, you have it for kids. So it's Tristan Scott and Ungen, Kara, Anjan Kara are here to talk about is incredible to me when people go against big tech and they're like, I'm going to offer something different and you're so successful. So can you give us the story? I know, Tristan, I read your book called Bitcoin and Beef. So I know you' this background of health and wellness. We're talking so much about Junk Light. You're actually outside right now. And Anjin, I don't know your backstory as much. So how do the two of you connect? What do you do for Daylight? This is incredible.
- [01:42]
Anjan Kara
Yeah, thanks for having us. I feel sometimes like a jihadi in the middle of Silicon Valley. Not at all aligned with the, the philosophy here, but trying to, trying to change things from the inside. But I actually grew up in Canada and I think what led me to Daylight is I've always been in a very, very hyper and a very, very hypersensitive kid. I'm surprised I was able to get through high school and get through college because I feel like I've always been like a child and I'm the CEO and founder of a company, but I've always been very, very sensitive. Super adhd, that's what I was called. That's What I was, I found solace in, and then I also realized is a limiting identity. I just found computers very, very overstimulating. And before you know it, I have 300 tabs open, and before you know it, I'm going to close them. I have 452. I just found I was always fighting myself with a computer. I'm sensitive to light. I have seasonal affective disorder. And I grew up in Vancouver, Canada, which is not a great place for that. And, gosh, I just noticed how sensitive I am when I don't get enough sun and it comes wintertime. And I didn't quite connect with those around me who seemed a little more impervious to it. And so often you're stuck inside because of computers. You got to get this thing done. You got to get that homework done. And so the combination of just sort of feeling so limited by being inside, and then inside, I feel crummy, and then this thing is overstimulating me and I'm getting distracted. Then I feel bad about myself, like, oh, I don't have willpower. I'm not doing a good job. I'm disappointing the other people. The deadline's getting closer. I'm getting more nervous. And so I just had a really tough time through college. And I went around the world for two years after college just trying to, like, find myself. I had some air miles saved up, so I ended up being also cheaper. And I spent a lot of time outdoors. And I was really frustrated that I would still be inside, stuck to the WI Fi, trying to hide my screen from the sun when I'm in the most beautiful place somewhere in Indonesia. So all this sort of came to a fruit, and I wanted to declare bankruptcy on screens, on computing, and give myself some hope, because the rest of my life, whatever job I did, whether I was a manager at Chick Fil A, or I was a researcher or I was an entrepreneur, my life was going to be mediated by screens. There was no way I could be a Luddite. And so, sort of out of desperation, I said, even if this doesn't help anybody else, I need this for myself and my younger self to give a sense of hope. And that's how I started Daylight. And then six. Six years after starting it, I met Tristan. And it was like meeting somebody who. Who this project was waiting for. It's been a fun two years since then.
- [04:30]
Jenny Urch
Wow. Okay, so this is a long time coming. Engine 6 Years before you meet Tristan. I am just so impressed with any person who. This is the biggest problem of Our time, right, which is screen addiction and screen overuse for adults, for kids, you know, for teens, these. This is it. And so someone who was like, you know what? I'm going to tackle it. That is incredible. So then, Tristan, where do you come in?
- [04:54]
Tristan Scott
Yeah. So I really got down the health and wellness rabbit hole after suffering one too many concussions. And end of 2017, beginning of 2018, pretty much all of 2018, was dealing with post concussive syndrome. Lost my health as I was in my last year of college. And really just, you know, you. You go down the rabbit hole, you realize there's all these lifestyle habits that you can do to optimize your health. And I was fortunate because I didn't have a true standard American upbringing. My mom's from Austria, so valued the outdoors, like, very heavily. But it wasn't until I lost my health, I kind of got reconnected to that and really just started implementing, you know, diet changes, getting outside more, learning about the light stuff, everything, and kind of got really interested in the issues with our food system, with overall society, like, why is it that we're progressing, quote, unquote. But more and more people are feeling kind of worse off, and technology is a big part of that. But overall centralization to me was a big part of that. And I wrote that book, Bitcoin and Beef, because I was really passionate about regenerative agriculture, is really passionate about the monetary system, and wanted to kind of put my name out there and really just connect with people that were on a similar wavelength. So I wrote that in 2020 and really started just diving deeper and realizing that my background in electrical engineering was kind of the perfect knowledge set to be a voice in educating around the electromagnetic aspects of our biology. Because everyone starts with food and exercise, and it's really easy to grasp that. But very few people had talked and educated about the simplistic fact of why getting outside is really beneficial for our health. Not even beneficial, it's more so foundational for what it means to be human. And I was really passionate about that and kind of in the social media space, realized there's a lot of gaps. You know, people are talking about circadian rhythm, some people are talking about light and EMFs, but the health influencers didn't really know the physics to really explain it. Well, the researchers are too technical. So I started talking about these topics a lot. I had my own podcast, and eventually that led me to an introduction to Anjan from a doctor and had him on my podcast. And from there it was, yeah, A no brainer because I had recently left my engineering job and it was, it was a culmination of the perfect timing because I had this very unique background of, you know, electrical engineering. I worked in the semiconductor electronics industry. So know the business side of things very well and then have this extreme passion for health and really knowledge of. From a personal anecdotal perspective, I was spending more time on screen on the Internet. Even though I was optimizing all these things, so inherently I was plateauing and I was like, well, I want to be as healthy as possible, but now because I need to connect in this digital world, I'm spending more time on screens and whenever I would use my phone a lot, which I now know is mostly because the flicker, the pwm which we can talk about, I was getting my symptoms coming back more and more. And then I met Anjin and I was like, wow. I always knew this was possible to create, you know, and engineer a solution that's, that's better for the end user. But you know, having worked in the semiconductor industry, I knew how challenging this was. I knew the barrier to entry was so high you're competing with the largest companies in the world. So I was so impressed and yeah, pretty much dropped everything I was doing and jumped on board. And now here we are. So it's, Couldn't it be more exciting to pour all my effort into this and pick up all the incredible persistence and energy that Anjan had already put into it?
- [08:46]
Jenny Urch
Yes. The barrier of entry is so high and that's what's so remarkable that you're like, I'm going to take it on. And I think it goes in line with the Bitcoin and beef book. To Tristan, because you were talking in there about decentralization. So you're talking about big food and you're talking about the finances, you know, these different banks. To me it's similar. It's like there's big tech, it takes over everything. There's two types of computers basically you can buy, they're not good for you, nobody feels well. And here you come with the daylight computer and you're like, we are going to do it differently. And they're selling out, people have to get on wait list. I mean it is remarkable. And you have these options for kids. So what does that look like, Anjin, when you have this dominant, this dominant hardware, dominant software apps in this whole ecosystem and you have to be so creative to come in and say I'm going to do it differently. And these are the things I'm going to do differently. How do you even pick what the foundational parts of the daylight computer are going to be?
- [09:46]
Anjan Kara
I think the core of it was, I think there's this like tech I think has very little humility and I think it's totally dissociated. And there's this self fulfilling prophecy that comes from that, which is I'm going to make people more productive. These chips are going to be faster, the numbers are going to be higher. Look, Ma does 5 GHz now. And if you live in that world, if all you're using is only your head and you no longer can feel your body and everything is optimized in productivity, you're like, look, there's no problems, it's fine. And it's like, yes, because you don't feel your body. And so I just felt like what is going on here? Because it is so obvious, like you're saying, we all talk about this so much, how this is the biggest problem and how do people in tech seemingly haven't come up with anything. These companies have billions of dollars, they're worth trillions now. Why hasn't anybody done anything about it? And Ginny, the thing that I think really made this clear for me is when I spent time with a lot of these people, the people who founded these companies, a bunch of tech billionaires and leaders and so on. The part that broke my heart and infuriated me and I think gave me a bunch of the motivation on top of my own personal struggles for whoa, somebody's got to do something about this is they didn't let their own kids use technology much.
- [11:10]
Podcast Host/Announcer
That's right.
- [11:12]
Anjan Kara
That's the part that blew my mind when I would learn that they work in social media and then their kids aren't allowed social media until they're 16. When I learned that Steve Jobs makes the iPad and iPhone for the rest of us, but his own kids aren't allowed to have iPads or iPhones until they're 16. And then Bill Gates didn't allow his own kids and then Mark Zuckerberg doesn't allow his own kids, he doesn't allow them to be on social media. And then you see some of the people who are like huge daylight fans and it's like this tech billionaire who has invested in a lot of these things but buys five daylights for his kids. And that was the part that's actually sort of, I think how me and Tristan bonded is I felt like I was personally beating myself up so much and then I was like, I Just need to do something to give myself hope. And then you see these people who are like, there is no problem. Are you talking about, it's all good? Look at the new MacBook. It's thinner, it's faster. Please buy it. And then you see what they do for their own children versus what they sell to your kids.
- [12:13]
Jenny Urch
Wow.
- [12:14]
Anjan Kara
That is when I was like, I don't care how long this is going to take, how hard this is going to be. I don't care if I fail. Somebody needs to do something about it. And I thought it would take two years. And it took. It's. It's been seven years, almost eight years now since we started. And so I think it wasn't even a matter of, like, I had a particular idea of this is what it needs to look like. It was more like, what is the least computer possible? If we're just going to declare bankruptcy on this thing, what is the least computer possible? And I actually started out, Ginny, with just completely declaring bankruptcy of a computer. So I bought the fastest printer I could have, I bought the fastest scanner I could have. And I just tried my best to print out everything. Emails, websites. It's like sometimes my dad does this and I did this. And then I wanted it digital and searchable, so I would scan it all back. And I bought these Live Scribe books where it's like paper, but then whatever you write with your pen would digitally go back. And it just didn't work. It doesn't work. I had to face the fact I wasn't ideologically like, it's got to start with a computer. It's got to be technology. I try to go as analog as possible, and it's just too inconvenient. You can't print out things that are dynamic. All these things aren't static. And so then I was like, okay, what's one step above being totally analog? Because I don't know if I want computers to, but I want some of these digital superpowers. And the immediate thing that came to mind was, yeah, a legal pad, a book, a moleskin, and a typewriter. If I think about the least of what I would want, it's that. And so the first sort of set of ideas around the daylight was, yeah, what if I just had a place like a paper, like computer. It's essentially a fat piece of paper that's digital that I could read, I could write, I could think, and I could take notes and have that be the core of it. Forget about apps, forget about colors, forget about it being like super stimulating. How do I make something that's calm as simple as possible and go from there?
- [14:35]
Jenny Urch
What do you say to the skeptics?
- [14:38]
Anjan Kara
Oh, I have. You should have seen the stories of the early people, Ginny. The number of people when I first. So I spent all of my life savings to try to get this off the ground. And some of that was because I wanted it to sort of not be corrupted by investors. But at a certain point I ran out of money so I needed some investors. The number one thing I heard, and my God were they skeptical, was this is great, I would love for this my kids. But it seems a little optimistic. Don't people want to be addicted? People want to be distracted? May I remind you that kids will choose skittles over hummus every time? And that was the number one thing I heard is I would want this for my own children. But geez, people just are degenerates. Like we need to pander to them. And you're being too optimistic. And I think the thing I would say to skeptics is this doesn't need to be ideological. It's just you notice you feel better. Yeah, you are healthier. And guess what? You don't procrastinate on the thing you have to do. The thing that takes three hours and a bunch of tantrums and fighting. And this happens in an hour because you're feeling good, your feet in the dirt or you're outside, you're sleeping well, you're not staying up late. And so I think the thing that hit me trying to practice this in my own life is there aren't always trade offs between health and performance. There aren't trade offs between what actually feels good, not in a sort of junk food, quick hit way, but in a more substantial way. And being able to, to do a lot of things actually I think you need the former. I think you need to feel good, have a regulated nervous system, be healthy, to then have the full embodiment of your expression and intelligence and being. And that's the point of daylight, is how do you have a human be regulated physically, nervous system, mentally, even intellectually, such they can be a whole human. It's not about technology, it's about everything else. But let's not have this be a black hole and have this something that pulls you down.
- [16:47]
Jenny Urch
I bet the feedback is just phenomenal because I think with something like this you just have to try it. So people are skeptical, okay, is it really going to work for my life? And then they try it. And, and to your point they didn't procrastinate. So they got their work done in X amount of time. And oh my Goodness, I had 90 more minutes today than I normally do because normally I was scrolling or getting distracted or I, you know, I lost my attention, my attention span was low. So I, you know, I went from this thing to the 400 tabs that you have open. So you try. I bet within a day, you know, it's like people are sending feedback, like my life already feels different. And then for their kids as well.
- [17:22]
Podcast Host/Announcer
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- [20:23]
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- [21:49]
Jenny Urch
So I definitely. Tristan, want to talk about the light, the pwn that you said. So there's the daylight. You can get one for the adult and then I'll make sure I'll put all the links. It just launched daylight kids. So you've got for every age and stage here for whoever is going to need a screen. So this is calm technology and you talk about the flicker. So there's no blue light here. So it's blue light, free for a good night's rest. And there's a lot of other benefits as well because our kids are sick and sad and distracted. But just in terms of light, what is this like and how does it help kids?
- [22:29]
Tristan Scott
Yeah, I think the starting point to set the frame here is actually a meme, right? It's a trend and that's iPad kids. And I think it encapsulates the problem statement, statement perfectly. And I think this is most on tick tock, Instagram, Facebook as well. But you know, it's. The kids can't put down the iPad and when you take it away from them, the tantrum is just out of this world. It's, it's something that a parent has, has never seen before and it progressively gets worse. And that is because the product at hand is literally designed to not easily be put down. The business model of these companies we're now in an attention based economy is to optimize the environment. They're designing the environment so that adults, so that kids spend more time on screen. And then that is, you know, the consumerism drive that keeps fueling everything forward, right? So the question is, why is it so hard to put down? And it's a combination of things. A lot of people hang up on just the software, just like the algorithm, which is of course so good it's not even fair at this point in 2025. But the analogy I always like to give is think of a Las Vegas casino, right? What is the environment that they designed for you when you walk in that door? Well, they cut off natural light. It's fully indoors. There's bright, highly saturated flashing lights everywhere. There's other small things like, you know, no time, no clocks, there's alcohol, there's, you know, girls not wearing a lot of clothes walking around. You can have what you want. But then when you sit down on the slot machine, that's the game, right? That is the actual game or the software or the algorithm. And because of that whole environmental design, you're much more likely to sit there for hours once you start playing. And imagine if they took that slot machine, put it outside. There wasn't all these bright flashing lights. That's really the curation that's happening. And it's because the light is so intense, it's so saturated, but also very heavy in high energy visible or blue light, which is really the most dopaminergic. It's the most stimulating spectrum of light. You know, you can see my background here. The sky is blue. There's, I'm getting bathed in blue light right now. It's not all bad, it's just bad in the wrong context. And here, out in nature, outside getting blue with the rest of the spectrum, it's, it's very balanced. It's coming with the low energy infrared and you're getting it from a very dispersed source. And it's telling me to my body to wake up, to go do things, go hunt, go gather food, basically be productive. That's good, that's what we want. The problem is when you're getting that in an 11 inch or a 13 inch handheld device, that surface, that form factor is now the new reality. That's the world in your hands. And for a child that has a developing brain and developing biology, they're far, far more sensitive. Their eyes let in almost 50% more blue light. They're holding the devices closer to them, so they're getting up to sometimes 4 to 5x the intensity that an adult would. And they have this developing dopamine reward system, neural circuitry. So their body's looking, it's ultra sensitive. It's looking to optimize and adapt their biology and all their cellular functions for the environment that they're in. But now you've given them a completely new environment with a handheld device. So of course they don't stand a chance. And that's why when you pull it away from them, it's, it's basically pulling them out of this world that's giving them the dopamine, the fulfillment. And it's why it's so hard for their brain to not want more constantly. And I think it's, it's debatably extremely predatory. And it's really understanding that our children are so much more sensitive. And that's why we've launched Daylight Kids, because we think this is where we can have the biggest impact in changing our relationship with technology. Because, you know, Anja and I luckily are at the era of where we grew up. We got smartphones in like early high school. So that's like old now. Now it's like seven years old. I mean, they're getting Chromebooks in kindergarten and public schools. In some states they're getting iPads. I mean, digital babysitting can start as early as 10 months. I mean, this is common, right? So it's in a completely different scenario that we're in and it keeps progressing. And although the problem statement is very known, parents don't really have a lot of options. So the whole movement behind Daylight Kids is that whenever you are ready as a parent to introduce screen time to introduce this conduit to the digital world, which is extremely useful. I mean, the only reason we're able to do this, the only reason Anja and I learned so much of what we learned is because of access to the Internet. And we do have the, you know, our scope of the universe's knowledge at our fingertips, but because of the inherent design of the technology, we end up doing things that are a lot, a lot less productive. That's kind of where we're at with Daylight Kids is that it's intentional screen time. And we have a different software. So the difference is the hardware is the same. It comes with a protective case if you order the younger kids bundle. Because of course, cases are extremely important for kids. But really we've also created a new software environment so that it's even more curated. There's parental controls, there's a lot of limitations, so that it's really stripped down to the basics for parents to just feel comfortable with handing technology to their children. But at no point should it overpower or be the main show of childhood. Childhood, as you guys talk about, should be outdoor space play based. And because the daylight can also be used outside with a reflective display, you can kind of kill two birds with one stone. And that's, to me, the biggest reason why technology is so detrimental is because it simply has not been designed to be used out in. What I like to say is, is the real world.
- [29:04]
Jenny Urch
So many things to think about there. I love the phraseology that you used engine of least computer possible. So you know, how, how can I use this? But like, in the, in the least, least amount of way, it doesn't draw you in quite so much and it doesn't suck up so much of your time. And I think, Tristan, your point of the slot machine in the casino is so it's such a good analogy because if there was a slot machine next to a river and you love to fish or you're. It's at the beach. And like, there's a slot you that there are no slot machines at the beach. And in fact, there are slot machines. Sometimes you see them, like if you're traveling, they're at the, you know, the road, stop, whatever, along the toll road. Like, I have never seen anybody on those ever. It's only in that certain environment. So if you change the environment, you change that addictive pull. And it is incredible that you could take this outside because there's so much Ed Tech and so many things are happening on computers. So it's going to change the experience if your kid is able to take this outside. Can you talk Anjin then about the light? Like, what's different in the daylight computer, as opposed to this blue light? Flicker. And it's a lot of flicker and it's a lot of blue light. What's different about the daylight?
- [30:18]
Anjan Kara
You can sort of think of the daylight as two aspects to it, the software and the hardware. And the core, core innovation is we made a computer screen that doesn't have blue light, number one. Number two, we got rid of flicker. Number three is you can use it outdoors in the direct sunlight. And then number four is it's not oversaturated, it's calm. The last one is sort of hard to say in words, but when you see it, you feel it. And on the software side, get rid of a million apps, get rid of the Internet and the App Store and everything and just put a couple things. Reading, writing audiobooks, like you're saying, some of the homeschooling and Ed Tech apps and things, Khan Academy, whatever it is. And that's it. And the core way we did this is essentially computers right now try to compete with your environment. They try to create light and overpower the sun. And that's why when you go outside, you can't see your computer screen. And so what we do instead is we actually work in harmony with light the same way analog objects do. So the reason this works outside is the sunlight is actually hitting the computer, the daylight and then reflecting into your eyes the same way a newspaper or a book. And so therefore we're not competing with natural light, we're actually using it. And so therefore you get infrared, you get the full spectrum of the light. And so this trying to be in harmony in nature is also the same principle of why we got rid of Flickr, because real light is continuous. But it turns out, and they kind of snuck it past us in the last. Since LEDs come out, it turns out that if you were to look at a computer screen in slow motion. You go put your, put it in slow mo. It's actually flickering, it's strobing. It is going on, off, on off, on off, on off, on off, on off, on off. And doing it crazy fast. So fast as it goes. Hey, nobody noticed. Hey, Jim. We tested on people for two hours. They didn't get headaches. Looks like it's safe. And because there is no true testing of computer technology, there was no true understanding of health and there's no way to notice longer term consequences or more subtle ones. We introduced this thing called Flickr into all of our computers, which is basically how they control the brightness of the screen. If you put the brightness to 100 and burn your eyeballs, there's no flicker because it's just completely on. But if you put the brightness to 50%, then half the time it'll be on and half the time it'll be off. So think about it as like 3 milliseconds on, 3 milliseconds off, 3 milliseconds on, 3 milliseconds off. And if you put the brightness really low, then it's truly, it's like 6 milliseconds off, 1 millisecond on. And it turns out this actually really affects us. And the core of how this affects us is it dysregulates our nervous system. It puts cognitive load on your brain. And if you're wondering why kids are fidgeting or they have less attention spans or their nervous system is revved up and oh, everybody has adhd. I believe flicker is actually one of the core ways. On top of the light being oversaturated, being too bright, and being emissive rather than natural light, I think this is one of the core ways we overdrive kids. And in the same way, when you're all like this and all over driven, what sometimes do people do? They binge eat, they try to stuff their face to deal with how overstimmed they are. And guess what? The binge eating here is, to use the casino analogy, it's the dopamine, it's the junk food information, it's the games, it's the YouTube. And so by getting rid of flicker, by being able to use natural light, by also getting rid of blue light when you do use this at nighttime. So our thing is flicker free, it's blue light free. It's a lot less overstimulating, it's a lot less addicting. You notice this very quickly in people's behavior, especially when you take away a Daylight from a kid versus when you take away an iPad. You notice this when how much they're fidgeting when they're inside versus you do the same thing outside. And there's enough sounds and there's birds and, you know, there's the sound of the wind and their feet are in the dirt. And suddenly that same kid that was ADH and fidgeting is a lot more regulated. Preaching to the converted. But that's the sort of idea behind why we invented the screen. We did.
- [34:54]
Jenny Urch
That's interesting wording. Preaching to the converted. I, you know, I think that people listening would be like, yes, I totally agree with everything you're saying. But also, they may not know that there's this other option out there. I mean, this is wonderful. I mean, this is a newer thing. Where is the other option that's flicker free? Where is the other option that gets rid of the blue light? Where is the person that's like, hey, these things are causing a lot of problems and I'm going to make something that doesn't have it. I can't even. I'm just like, are you a genius? Like, who's like, hey, I know all of these other, like Apple and all these other ones, like, they got Flickr. They've got blue light. You know what? I'm going to make it. It's not going to have it. I mean, that's incredible. It is incredible. So that's hitting the nervous system. Talking about dysregulation, talking about the circadian rhythm. Like, you have all this amazing information online. And also like these. I got stacks of information from daylight where you're talking about, like, the percentage of melatonin suppression by light in children is almost twice that in adults, suggesting that melatonin is more sensitive to light in children than in adults at night. You're Talking about how 98% of schools now incorporate ed tech of some sort. So this is like almost the entire population is being exposed to this flicker and to this blue light. And so you have created something that doesn't have that and works in harmony with natural light. I love how you said real light is continuous. It's just a wave, right? Doesn't have these, like, peaks and valleys. And it has all of the colors in it and the light is just one part. Abercrombie Kids knows how to make outfitting easy. Mix and match sets are their ultimate.
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Podcast Host/Announcer
Outfit hack for fall.
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Jenny Urch
Their sweatshirts and sweatpants are super cozy and they always have the cutest colors and patterns. Shop fall's easiest outfit At Abercrombie Kids in the app online and in stores. When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more at WhatsApp.com adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained. One who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions.
- [37:42]
Anjan Kara
They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist.
- [37:46]
Jenny Urch
New Teen the new fragrance by Miu Miu, defined by you. So this is calm technology designed to make kids and adults healthier, happier and smarter. Parents are trapped in this never ending tug of war with technology. This is computer that's good for kids. Technology is making our kids sicker, sadder and more distracted. I just love the phrase calm technology. I don't think anybody thinks of technology and thinks of the word calm. You know, like you think of like, oh, like, you know, you're all. Makes me stressed out and you're scrolling and you're kind of stuck in it. But calm technology. So we've talked about the light. Can we talk about the emfs?
- [38:22]
Tristan Scott
Sure, yeah. This is another topic we're very passionate about and I think, you know, similar to Flickr, probably slightly more well known, but also on that fringe area of debatable in the mainstream of, you know, is this harmful? Is this something to worry about? The way we see it is that, you know, when you come out here in, I'm in the wilderness in Wyoming and I take my radio frequency meter and I measure the baseline out here and it's, it's zero. And there are thousands of published studies showcasing potential harmful biological effects. And this has been debated for a very long time. Actually power line EMFs were a hot topic like in the 70s and that got swept kind of under the rug because it's very inconvenient, we have all this infrastructure and then now we have the cellular wireless telecommunication era. And although there's been some pretty profound research and you can look up like national toxicology programs, research on 2G, 3G, which showcase incidences of cancer, which is very concerning stuff. And I don't want to go down the laundry list and scare everyone but in general, I think the way Anjanai like to see it is this is just another stressor in our environment. It's just another thing that's activating our nervous system that's potentially harming our cells. It's really, I like to explain it as noise. It's confusing our biology, right, because what are the input signals that we want to receive in our life? And it's, you know, full spectrum sunlight, it's high quality food. It's really the environment that we were meant to consume. And now we have all this artificial inputs that we're consuming. We have artificial light, it's flickering, it's not the right spectrum. We have radio frequencies everywhere. Power frequencies have this collective stress and it's confusing our cells, it's confusing our biology. I like to say the signal to noise ratio has never been lower. And that's why I think chronic fatigue is pretty much the norm nowadays. I don't really know many adults that go without any stimulants, sleep with really well, even if they're doing the quote unquote right things with diet and exercise. There's, there's another added element here and it's part of this indoor living transition that we have gone through in the past hundred, 120 years. And for children, it's the same thing as light. The electromagnetic frequencies and fields from wireless communication, Wi Fi, 5G G, the power frequencies as well. All of these, they're far more sensitive to because their bodies are smaller. If you hold a cell phone next to your head, if imagine how much smaller a child's head and skull is, that's penetrating much deeper. And all of the safety standards for cellular radiation in the radio frequency realm has been done on adults. It has been done actually. The standard is like a 6 foot 2, 220 pound bio dummy. So when you look deeper into this, it's, it's easy to question, hey, is this actually safe for kids? And then going back to Anjan's original point, these leaders, these CEOs, these founders of big tech companies, they're not letting their kids use technology. And it's not just because of the light. It's because of the combination of the EMF exposure and the visible light exposure. So for us at daylight, what have we done differently? What do we want to do? So this is a harder problem to tackle. I would say for starters, light is kind of easy. Hey, let's get outside, let's copy the sun, let's block blue light at night, let's try and get a candle Campfire light spectrum, which is what our backlight is, is much closer to. We have a custom led, so it's that amber glow. It's not, you know, red blue light blockers or red phone filter, which works in getting rid of blue light. But it's not really a visible experience that's positive or it's actually not indicative to what we have experienced in nature. Like when you just have a campfire, there's yellow, orange, red, lots of infrared in there. And that's what we're aiming for. Pretty simple. Radio frequencies never existed. So how do we kind of emulate nature in that capacity? And it's really doing our best job to mitigate them. So there's a software component to that and then a hardware component. And we're launching in the next month or so our first software feature that is basically going to be called Smart Airplane mode. So the daylight will, if you're not using it, just go into airplane mode. And not only if you're not using it, it'll keep getting smarter if you're just reading or taking notes or really just utilizing it or have it on standby next to you. Like a lot of people just have these devices on their desk in front of them. They're not using it. And that wireless WI fi chip in there is pinging the network. So you're constantly being exposed to these sources for really no, no reason. And if you have devices that accept the fact that, hey, maybe EMFs are harmful for our biology, why don't we just take the easy option, have some software that says, okay, if you don't use it for a minute or two, it just turns the antenna off. And then the next level on top of that is getting even wiser. Okay, how do we have like a low EMF mode? So if you're just browsing the Internet or doing messages, you don't need full transmit power, we can scale that back down a ton and that's the next step. And this is also beneficial for battery life. So it's kind of a win, win. And you know, to naysayers as well. A lot of research came out early in the, in the 2000s showcasing like potential effects of old cell phones and like brain cancer. And people like, well, why doesn't everyone have brain cancer? Honestly, B is probably the reason because if battery technology was way better, the output power of devices from a radio frequency radiation perspective would be much higher. So it's something that companies are probably going to start doing in general anyway. Now with AI integrations, battery is like the limiting factor to a lot of things and of course also compute power. But what we're doing is like, hey, we're doing this because we believe this could improve the well being of the end user. This could have a, a effect, a positive effect on your nervous system, on children's development. It's not going to mess with the proper biological signals. And in future devices we really want to even geek out on, on the hardware. Hey, what if there's a sensor that senses where the device is being held in space? So if a child is holding the device, it'll only transmit away from them and it won't transmit right at them. That's something that's very feasible. Directional antennas. And as a small company, of course there's a lot of ideas we have and that's one of them. And I think it's just a matter of time before we're able to execute on them. So I'm very excited about that. And then of course in general, if you're outside, you're going to be away from a lot of wireless sources. You're going to have a much lower overall EMF footprint. And, and you can use our device outside, which is fantastic. And it does work with ethernet. That's how I use it a lot. So you can go 0emf if you want to. We have a few, you know, super deliberate parents that only let their kids use the daylight and then they only let them use it with an ethernet cord. So that's, I think bringing you back wired is an awesome movement but we also know that it's inconvenient. So we want to get wireless to be the best possible version of itself.
- [46:23]
Anjan Kara
And if you're outdoors with your feet in the dirt, you're grounding. So the impact of the WI fi of the EMFs are going to be reduced. So once again it's like being outside can, if you're just in your backyard can really help a lot.
- [46:36]
Jenny Urch
Wow, I'm slack jawed. I'm slack jawed because like you said Anjin, it's like these are trillion dollar companies who have not tackled any of these things, which pretty much most people have heard of. Most people know about eye strains, most people know about blue light. Maybe less people know about Flickr. I, I didn't know like to the extent that you talked about it and that it dysregulates your nervous system. People have heard of emfs but maybe don't quite know the extent of the damage that that can cause. And you took on those problems as well as the addiction piece, you know, the addictive apps and, and those types of things. So you did it like that too. And a device that you can take outside, you have these, these gorgeous photos of a. And you know, if edtech is in 98% of schools, then chances are your child is going to be exposed to one of these devices. So you have them. It's like they're outside on laying in the grass, working on their schoolwork. What a better environment for them to be. And you talk a lot about myopia and the percentages of myopia and the eye strain.
- [47:38]
Podcast Host/Announcer
So if your kids are outside, then.
- [47:39]
Jenny Urch
They get to look up and they look around and it relaxes, taxes their eyes and it helps with so much. Can we hit the, the algorithm addictive piece in our last little bit here? Because it's like you have tackled all the main things and this is another one that you've tackled.
- [47:54]
Anjan Kara
There's a funny experiment we ran to Tristan's point of sort of like, I love what, the way you said it too. You put the slot machine beside the river. Like, how much money is Vegas going to make on that one? And I think that actually like we had kids using YouTube on a daylight. We made a version of the Daylight that you could use everything on it. And I remember the parents saying, I've never seen my son get bored of YouTube. What just happened?
- [48:24]
Jenny Urch
Wow, that's so powerful. I have chills.
- [48:27]
Anjan Kara
And it's all it takes. If you just level the playing field and you put even the slot machine, you put it outside, it's still the day slot machine, you actually have a chance for it to not take over your life. And I think before we even talk about what the, you know, like the sort of. The software is hermetically sealed to only sort of have the good stuff. Reading, writing, drawing stories. But even just the fact that we took the physical aspect of a computer seriously, I think actually gets you like 70% of the way.
- [48:57]
Jenny Urch
Yeah. And then, then no ads. Ads, that's a huge thing. No tracking, no social media, no junk content, no doom scrolling hassle free parental controls, no setup requirement. And I love this tantrum free. His parenting's hard enough. Kids are going to have tantrums over all sorts of things. Like you cut their sandwich in a triangle, they want it in a square, they're going to have a tantrum. You know, at certain ages they're like, you're going to give them a pretzel stick and it broke in half on accident. They wanted it not broken. And there's nothing you can do at this point. Like I can't put it back together. They're going to have a tantrum. They're already going to have enough tantrums so to have them over technology. I've seen some videos that you've posted where like, and, and I've talked to Dr. Nicholas Carderis and these different specialists who have these kids come into their office and they are like addicts coming off of an addiction. They're punching holes in the walls. Parents are having to call the police. Like it really has gotten bad. And, and parenting is hard enough so to have a device that is not adding to the tantrum situation because the kids. I always think of it like when I'm reading a book, I do not have a hard time extracting myself from reading the book. Even if I'm sucked into the world. You know, I'm reading Hunger Games or, you know, I'm in the world, the fantasy world of, of whatever and like Tolkien or something, you know, like you're, you're kind of sucked into that story, but you can come in and out, you know, you can interact with somebody else that they talk to. You can interact with your kid. It is different when you're on one of these phones that has the blue light, you are sucked in. And even for an adult, I think sometimes it's hard to pull yourself out of that to interact with the people around you. So the Daylight is more similar to the book for so many reasons.
- [50:43]
Anjan Kara
Yeah, if you talk about algorithms, they're infinite. I think that's such a key part of it is they're never ending. And the point of the Daylight is sort of finiteness is powerful. If you can take the digital world and you can carve it out and it's finite, then actually a lot of things don't need to be so bad. So for example, one of the things we're developing is you don't get the YouTube app that is not on the Daylight, but from the parents phone app they can send a specific YouTube video that's let's say an educational video or that. And then on your Daylight, all you get is that specific, specific video.
- [51:21]
F. Downs
Wow.
- [51:21]
Anjan Kara
And you can't click through to recommended. You can't go on something else. It's just that. And then that YouTube video is not necessarily bad or addicting in the way the YouTube app is. And so we took something infinite and made it finite. And that's the goal of what we want to do, to sort of the hardware protects you the most. But Then also, it's really a lot of effort for parents to set up parental controls and block things in this. So we're like, instead of by default, everything being open, and you got to get rid of notifications, you got to do this to the point of declaring bankruptcy on computing. Let's start instead of being maximalist with the minimalist. By default, everything is blocked by default. There is no tracking, there's no spying, there's no anything. And we'll just start with a couple different things. Reading, writing, drawing stories. If you have Khan Academy or an edtech product to use. And then what we want to do next is like, maps and wayfinding, where you can be outside, you can take a picture or something, and it'll tell you what that is, or you could ask questions. And so by default, it just comes from it being super constrained and super finite. But you're not a Luddite and you're not completely ignoring technology.
- [52:34]
Jenny Urch
It's fine. It is the least computer possible. I love Tristan. It really kind of goes in line with. And I would imagine you could have never envisioned this would be the spot that you're in in life. But you write Bitcoin, Bitcoin and beef, and you say decentralization provides freedom and.
- [52:51]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Liberty to the population.
- [52:53]
Jenny Urch
And that's what you've done here. You know, it's like you've got these huge, big tech corporations and no one has freedom or liberty. And you come along with this product that provides that for families, for children, so much more freedom to live their life the way that they want to you because they're not addicted. Can you tell people all the information about where to find more?
- [53:13]
Tristan Scott
Yeah, yeah. And. And that's a beautiful piece. And we've even shown at conferences, conferences, like, what I call cognitive sovereignty. Right. Like, it's easy to think about it from a perspective of, you know, I own this, or I can say what I want, free speech. But how many people have cognitive sovereignty? And what I mean by that is, like, where they're spending their attention, their time. I don't fully. I could tell you, you know, on Instagram, occasionally get sucked in. So that's what's really, really exciting because I think this is so needed. And as Anja mentioned, I feel it for myself as well. And. And this is just the beginning for us. We have a whole, you know, product portfolio and progressions that we want to make. And yeah, in terms of where you can find us, we are@kids kids.darklycomputer.com. that's our Daylight Kids website. So we just launched that with the Kids bundle. I also want to mention because I'm sure some homeschooling parents. Listen, listen in. We are approved for ESA funds in at least a dozen states now and getting to as many as possible so through Odyssey and Class Wallet. If you have any questions about that, please feel free to email us. Hello, we're really excited for that. To lower the barrier entry of acquisition to. For homeschooling families. We're also, you know, piloting with schools and in multiple states. So if you are an educator, if you are well connected in your community, please don't hesitate to reach out to me directly which is just tristanaylightcomputer.com because we want to get this into schools. We think if we could replace the Chromebook or the iPad and as the first device in schools, then that's such a win because in my opinion, the fact that they're getting Chromebooks as early as kindergarten and first grade is crazy. And I've talked to a lot of superintendents and teachers and they think that as well. They just don't really know what to do now. And that's kind of the juxtaposition that both teachers, educators and most importantly parents are in. So besides that, our main website is daylightcomputer.com and then our socials, we have a Daylight Kids is our new Instagram socials we launched and then at DaylightCo for everything else.
- [55:27]
Jenny Urch
Wow. I am just thrilled I got a chance to talk to the two of you who have taken on big tech. I mean, it is just a remarkable thing in my like in my deepest being. I can't ever imagine being like I'm going to figure it out. And you figured it out and it is a remarkable product and the feedback and the way that it will help children and families, it just is a life changing thing that you have done. So definitely everyone who's listening, you can check that out, see what they have to offer and just pay attention. Because like you said, you've got this roadmap of adding on and, and different things. It's solving, it's solving this. You know, I say, I think it's the biggest problem of our time. You have made a computer that's good for people, a computer that's good for kids, a computer that's good for families, a computer that's good for parents, a computer that's good for corporate America, all of these different things. So what a wonderful thing, what an honor. We always end our show with the same question. The question Is what's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside.
- [56:34]
Anjan Kara
You're making me so happy right now, running through all these memories in my head. Wow. I, I, before I was in Vancouver, I grew up on the east side of Canada. And there was this lake, cultist lake that we would go to and we had this little like pedal boat type thing. And there was always supposed to be one adult in the boat. And then us kids, there would be two seats you could pedal in and one had to be the adult in this. And then I decided to mutiny and I brought three other kids and it was my little sister and the other one. And then we took the boat and we went out into the lake and I forget what we did or was unstable, but then we started taking in water. And I just remember our little mad.
- [57:21]
Tristan Scott
Dash trying to pedal back to the.
- [57:24]
Anjan Kara
Shore before the boat fully filled and it didn't quite work and the parents had to come out. And I remember scraping my shin and trying to get out of the boat. It was tipped over and things. And I just remember laughing, laughing my butt off with this scraped shin and this like pedal boat that's tipped over into the water.
- [57:46]
Jenny Urch
What an adventure. One adventure.
- [57:48]
Tristan Scott
I love that for me. Yeah, I mentioned my, my mom is from Austria. So very fortunate to have grown up like traveling there in the summer every year, every other year. And I just remember it was either 11 or 12 years old and at that time I was, you know, like watching sports so center every day, sometimes messaging with friends online and then we would go over there for two weeks. And she grew up in a very small mountain town and beautiful weather in the summer and you just kind of sit and walk outside playing with slugs on the playground, like no connection to like what's going on in America. The media, the news. Even though I was 11 or 12, like that had a profound impact on me and it's something I treasure a lot. And ironically, my mom's hometown is famous for being one of those, like, old school fresh air resort towns in the early 20th century, late 19th century, that people from Vienna would go up there, all the rich people, if they had tuberculosis or some sort of condition, and they would just go outside and breathe in the fresh mountain air and it's, you know, come full circle now that, that's, that was my childhood, the fondest memories. And now that's what I'm trying to create. That's what we're trying to create at daylight is that sort of life experience because that's, that's all you Need. Really?
- [59:07]
Anjan Kara
Yeah.
- [59:08]
Jenny Urch
That's what you're doing. Because what kid is going to sink in their paddleboat if they're, you know, addicted to their iPad and they're inside all the time, you know, they're gonna want to go do stuff. It's like creating adventure and allowing for people to get their time back. It is that freedom that you talked about. It's the, the freedom, the cognitive sovereignty to live like how you want to live it.
- [59:27]
Anjan Kara
It.
- [59:27]
Jenny Urch
It is remarkable. I am so impressed. I'm so impressed that you took on big tech and it is so successful. People can check it out@daylight computer.com. i said that, right? Yeah.
- [59:38]
Anjan Kara
Yes. And if I could share one last thing, Jenny, I think it's. We want to approach this with like, such a deep humility. Like, I think this is such an ambitious project and I think I'm still on the shock of like, whoa. We actually made something that works, that solves this. And I think we just want to have the humility that this big tech says this is what you all need and this is what it's all top down from an ivory tower. I think for us, it's like, wow, we sort of made something awesome here. But let's work with moms, let's work with nature schools, let's work with homeschoolers. Let's be in community and try to learn how we could adapt this. What's the specifics of how this could be a great product? And so we want to be in service and want to learn. And I'm anjin@dailylightcomputer.com and if any moms and homeschoolers want to reach out, we're just trying to learn and make this an awesome product that hopefully makes your life better and makes your kids the best version they could be.
- [60:37]
Jenny Urch
Wow. What a thing. What a thing. You're turning the turning the tides here. I so appreciate your time, so appreciate what you're doing. What you offer practical and incredible solutions for families and for kids. Thank you to the both for being here.
- [60:49]
Anjan Kara
Thanks so much for galvanizing this movement and having us on.
- [60:54]
Podcast Host/Announcer
If after listening to this episode, you're interested in checking out a daylight computer for yourself or your kids, you can get $50 off with code 1000 hours. Go to buy. Daylightcomputer.com 1000hours. Use our code 1000hours at checkout on either the Daylight DC1 or any of the kids bundle and you'll save $50 plus free shipping in the continental U.S. once again, that's buy. Daylightcomputer.com 1000 hours I'll put the link in the show notes.
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Jenny Urch
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Tristan Scott
With Liberty Mutual, but now we want.
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Jenny Urch
You to feel it.
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Tristan Scott
Cue the emu music.
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Jenny Urch
Limu Save yourself money today. Increase your wealth. Customize and save, we say.
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Tristan Scott
That may have been too much feeling. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty.
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Jenny Urch
Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Very unwritten by.
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Anjan Kara
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