Ripple Box: IoT notifications for CDBC payments

• 

  thumbnail

• 

  code

• 

  Raspberry Pi

• 

  Full setup

• 

  architecture

Inspiration

The PayTM soundbox is a device for Indian merchants to accept digital payments. It provides instant audio confirmations for payments. We needed an arbitration device between the merchant and the customer to decide whether a payment was actually made.

I built a prototype of the soundbox for Ripple. A CDBC will be successful ony if it is widely accepted by small and big merchants.

What it does

Ripple box gives you instant audio payment confirmations.

Whitepaper- https://docs.google.com/document/d/185KoBPu-CVO-qirtvLZAdO8k92g0yGPP8PnovAYN1y4/edit?usp=sharing

How we built it

I write a script in typescript to programmatically transfer XRP. I wrote another script to listen to received payments using websockets. I set up raspberry pi- the OS runs on a USB disk and a speaker provides payment confirmations. I ran the listener script on the PI, then initiated a payment from my computer.

Challenges we ran into

• The SDK documentation was outdated. I had to use plain websockets for listening to events.
• The official testnet RPC would time out so I used quicknode.
• Setting up Raspberry pi without a screen or keyboard is complex, luckily I was able to connect to it using SSH.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Learnt to setup and use a Raspberry Pi.

What we learned

• Using the XRP ledger
• Raspberry Pi

What's next for Ripple Box: IoT payments for merchants

This was a prototype which can be turned into a finished product. The receiver address is currently passed as an environment variable. I can build a mobile app for merchants to set the address and configure the device. The device was also quite barebones, we can turn it into a market grade product with a smaller speaker and a casing.

Built With

• node.js
• raspberry-pi
• ripple