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  Screenshot of Wear OS app in development

Introduction

Ripple On Your Wrist is a smartwatch app that enables users to see their Ripple account on their smartwatch wherever they go. It also has additional features such as enabling users to transfer XRP to others in their proximity with the same app, as well as providing estimates of what XRP is worth against a range of different currencies. It is based on the Android Wear OS operating system and leverages Ripple's xrpl4 library (i.e. this project is written in Java).

Background

When it comes to app development, we frequently think of mobile phone development. However, with the profundity of the internet and devices that can access the internet, what we think of as "mobile phone development" can be extended to everything from tablets to cars through to, as is the case here, smartwatch app development.

Smartwatch apps have some advantages over apps designed for mobile phones, depending upon the context. One advantage that smartwatch apps have over mobile phone apps is that smartwatch apps are focused on one core function. This is in contrast to mobile phones, which perform a variety of tasks, ranging from calling to social media through to playing games. For instance, if we are exercising, we would likely only be interested in our heartbeat or time spent exercising; whilst a mobile phone has the ability to offer this information, a smartwatch helps focus our attention on this information much more compared to a mobile phone.

Given the increased popularity of cryptocurrencies (although it should be noted that a Central Bank Digital Currency or CBDC is not technically a cryptocurrency) as well as technology solutions being associated with finance, it is somewhat surprising that smartwatch apps has been left largely untouched by the CBDC and cryptocurrency space. This project is hopefully a realistic attempt at entering into uncharted territory.

This hackathon is somewhat timely in that CBDCs are now a prominent topic in many economies around the world. In Europe, there is a push towards a "digital Europe". In the United Kingdom, where I am from, there is also a talk of a "digital Pound" and research is underway to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of it (I am currently also being reviewed by the Bank of England to engage in an open consultation on the merits/demerits of a digital pound). Relatedly, in many parts of Latin America there are similarly calls for a digital CBDC. In the United States, many are also talking about CBDCs although it should be noted for the avoidance of doubt that the app FedNow is not a CBDC.

Stage 1

This project was initially supposed to be a "Minimum Viable Product" (MVP) to showcase what a smartwatch app would look like as it displays a user's XRP balance on it. Unfortunately as is the case with Android issues, there were some bugs which could not be diagnosed enough in time to meet the deadline (there are also issues relating to the documentations provided by XRP that will be sent to the judges). Thankfully, however, Stage 1 is only an ideation stage and this brief post hopefully paints a light of what is expected as a result of this project.

Stage 2

Should this project be selected to progress on to the second stage, it is certainly expected that the smartwatch app will be fully functional. It will have the following features:

• Display XRP balance wherever the user is in the world.
• Work independently from any phone.
• Enable users to transfer XRP using Near Field Communication (NFC) such that XRP can be transferred between two adjacent smartwatches
• Notification of nearby users who are also XRP holders (consent required)
• Use statistical analysis to inform XRP holders of the likely value of their XRP against a range of traditional currencies at some determined point in the future.

The author has written extensively on cryptocurrencies and newer forms of payments. He has recently suggested a paper to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) titled, Just how stable are stablecoin cryptocurrencies, exactly?

Built With

• groovy
• java
• xml