A buddy of mine had the same thing. He started taking the light rail into downtown and purposefully parked at one of the early stops instead of taking the bus in. He said he would sit and code on his side projects for around the same amount of time. In the span of a year, he knocked out several small mobile apps and several social media plugins.
He said the benefit was being able to spend more time with his family at night when he got home. He knew he would have some time on the train, so not having to crack his laptop to get in some coding after dinner allowed him to spend a lot more time handling the kids and spending time with his wife.
"Work/Life balance achieved!" he used to proclaim with a big smile when we'd sit and chat.
My commute to work is quite long but there is no "sitting" in Tokyo's trains in mornings/evenings so I program on a smartphone. Yes, it's not impossible but it takes time to get used to it.
have you ever considered a nanote from donki? I've been using one as a paired terminal and with the right os (debian, no GUI) it stays cool enough and gets good battery, same with the gpd handhelds
I would go for some affordable AR glasses + a one-hand chord keyboard. No need to hold a device in one hand and operate it with another, while standing awkwardly bent down.
I generally just thumb-type on it with the hinge bent at 180°. I have a colleauge who tried the meta AR glasses and found the display smudgey with his 20/20 vision and my quest 3 I found very screen door-y, though I will admit I liked the apple vision pro's display, I have a fair bit of pessimism about the field as a whole atm, but would like to be proven wrong
He said the benefit was being able to spend more time with his family at night when he got home. He knew he would have some time on the train, so not having to crack his laptop to get in some coding after dinner allowed him to spend a lot more time handling the kids and spending time with his wife.
"Work/Life balance achieved!" he used to proclaim with a big smile when we'd sit and chat.