React Native Radio RNR 347 - Skylight: Smart Displays Powered by React Native
Nov 14, 2025
Alex Lanclos, Principal Software Engineer at Skylight, shares insights on powering smart displays with React Native. He discusses the architectural upgrades that enhanced performance and explains the transition from native Android to React Native. Alex delves into tools like Zustand for state management and TanStack Query for API caching, emphasizing the importance of testing and QA with tools like Maestro. He also offers valuable advice for startups considering React Native and reflects on the framework's advantages for future engineering efficiency.
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From Small Team To Large Engineering Group
- Alex joined Skylight when the engineering team was five or six people and watched it grow significantly over three years.
- He described that growth as humbling and emphasized long-term product evolution.
Frame Originated As A Native Android Project
- The Skylight Frame began as an Android device shoved into a wooden frame by the CEO during business school.
- The device app is a native Kotlin Android app due to early hardware and performance concerns.
React Native Solved Multiplatform Maintenance Pain
- Alex has used React Native since late 2017 and saw it mature through painful early upgrades.
- He noted teams moved to React Native to avoid maintaining two native repos and to deploy faster.