diff --git a/hosts/by-name/moby/polyfill.nix b/hosts/by-name/moby/polyfill.nix
index 0cdc5f8a..b10d504a 100644
--- a/hosts/by-name/moby/polyfill.nix
+++ b/hosts/by-name/moby/polyfill.nix
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ in
   };
 
   sane.gui.sxmo = {
+    nogesture = true;
     settings = {
       ### hardware: touch screen
       SXMO_LISGD_INPUT_DEVICE = "/dev/input/by-path/platform-1c2ac00.i2c-event";
@@ -168,10 +169,6 @@ in
     };
     package = pkgs.sxmo-utils.overrideAttrs (base: {
       postPatch = (base.postPatch or "") + ''
-        # don't enable gestures at launch
-        # sed -i '/superctl start sxmo_hook_lisgd/d' ./configs/default_hooks/sxmo_hook_start.sh
-        sed -i '1 a touch ~/.cache/sxmo/sxmo.nogesture' ./configs/default_hooks/sxmo_hook_start.sh
-
         cat <<EOF >> ./configs/default_hooks/sxmo_hook_start.sh
         # rotate UI based on physical display angle by default
         sxmo_daemons.sh start autorotate sxmo_autorotate.sh
diff --git a/hosts/modules/gui/sxmo/default.nix b/hosts/modules/gui/sxmo/default.nix
index d2bc7efc..3fda964c 100644
--- a/hosts/modules/gui/sxmo/default.nix
+++ b/hosts/modules/gui/sxmo/default.nix
@@ -126,6 +126,11 @@ in
       default = false;
       description = "inhibit lock-on-idle and screenoff-on-idle";
     };
+    sane.gui.sxmo.nogesture = mkOption {
+      type = types.bool;
+      default = false;
+      description = "don't start lisgd gesture daemon by default";
+    };
   };
 
   config = lib.mkMerge [
@@ -241,6 +246,9 @@ in
         sane.user.fs.".cache/sxmo/sxmo.noidle" = lib.mkIf cfg.noidle {
           symlink.text = "";
         };
+        sane.user.fs.".cache/sxmo/sxmo.nogesture" = lib.mkIf cfg.nogesture {
+          symlink.text = "";
+        };
         sane.user.fs.".config/sxmo/profile".symlink.text = let
           mkKeyValue = key: value: ''export ${key}="${value}"'';
           userConfig = lib.generators.toKeyValue { inherit mkKeyValue; } cfg.settings;