--- title: Using Your Monitor as a Key Light with Bash and a... description: A practical shell script that uses swaybg (or any wallpaper tool) to turn a monitor into a key light for video calls and recordings. The script sets a solid... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/using-your-monitor-as-a-key-light-with-bash-and-a-wallpaper-tool-nick-janetakis-uctgtyd8i twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Using Your Monitor as a Key Light with Bash and a Wallpaper Tool — Nick Janetakis | daily.dev og:description: A practical shell script that uses swaybg (or any wallpaper tool) to turn a monitor into a key light for video calls and recordings. The script sets a solid... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/using-your-monitor-as-a-key-light-with-bash-and-a-wallpaper-tool-nick-janetakis-uctgtyd8i og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ucTgTyd8I.png og:image:alt: Using Your Monitor as a Key Light with Bash and a Wallpaper Tool — Nick Janetakis og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Using Your Monitor as a Key Light with Bash and a Wallpaper Tool — Nick Janetakis **[Nick Janetakis](https://daily.dev/sources/nickjanetakis)** · 3 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A practical shell script that uses swaybg (or any wallpaper tool) to turn a monitor into a key light for video calls and recordings. The script sets a solid color wallpaper on a specified monitor and toggles it on/off by tracking state in a file. Supports custom colors and per-output targeting, making it a lightweight alternative to dedicated lighting hardware for Linux desktop users. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How can I use my Linux monitor as a key light for video calls? A small bash script can flood the screen with a solid bright color using swaybg, the Wayland wallpaper-setting tool, effectively turning the monitor into an improvised key light. Running the command lights up all monitors with a default white background; passing --output targets a specific monitor, and --color sets a custom hex color. Running the same command again toggles it off. _daily.dev surfaces practical Linux desktop tricks like this for developers tuning their streaming or call setup._ ### How do I find monitor output names when using niri on Wayland? Output names such as HDMI-A-2 can be found by running niri msg outputs, which lists the connected displays under the niri Wayland compositor. This is needed when targeting a specific monitor with tools like swaybg or scripts that accept an --output flag. _developers configuring multi-monitor Wayland setups can find niri and compositor tips on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Instantly Scale Your Monitors with niri — Nick Janetakis](https://daily.dev/posts/instantly-scale-your-monitors-with-niri-nick-janetakis-0lz4fb1tz) · Nick Janetakis · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [attogram/bash-screensavers: Turn your idle shell into a visual playground with this collection of Bash screensav­ers](https://daily.dev/posts/attogram-bash-screensavers-turn-your-idle-shell-into-a-visual-playground-with-this-collection-of-ba-xvqlozdia) · Hacker News · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Unified Theme for a Wayland Desktop](https://daily.dev/posts/unified-theme-for-a-wayland-desktop-lssxqthw9) · Atomic Spin · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Coding on Paper](https://daily.dev/posts/coding-on-paper-jcfcpkzfc) · Lobsters · 45 upvotes · 6 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#shell](https://daily.dev/tags/shell), [#bash](https://daily.dev/tags/bash) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/using-your-monitor-as-a-key-light-with-bash-and-a-wallpaper-tool-nick-janetakis-uctgtyd8i) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Using Your Monitor as a Key Light with Bash and a Wallpaper Tool — Nick Janetakis","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/using-your-monitor-as-a-key-light-with-bash-and-a-wallpaper-tool-nick-janetakis-uctgtyd8i","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/using-your-monitor-as-a-key-light-with-bash-and-a-wallpaper-tool-nick-janetakis-uctgtyd8i"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T10:40:01.911Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T08:44:30.832Z","description":"A practical shell script that uses swaybg (or any wallpaper tool) to turn a monitor into a key light for video calls and recordings. 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