Project

WristBuddy - mobile/wearable app

Your phone's status on your wrist — battery, connectivity, and more, at a glance.

A month-long app-building exploration that is now a finished product! WristBuddy runs on both platforms: iPhone + Apple Watch, and Android + Wear OS.

Something for me, maybe you’ll enjoy it too!

I designed WristBuddy to address a gap that I personally saw. My phone charges overnight, far from my bedroom, but sometimes, lying down, I want to double-check: “Is it really charging?”.

This need led me to learn more about mobile app development — in particular, to enhance the usability of the Apple Watch, a product that I really like.

WristBuddy was an evolution of that initial idea: if I can surface battery and charging data from the phone to the watch, what else would be useful?

The challenge

As a challenge, I set myself these design principles:

  • Minimal UI, simplicity from the start.
  • I don’t want your data. No account needed, no connection to the internet.
  • No ads. The free version provides enough functionality. For more, it’s a one-time purchase only — lifetime, no subscription.

So far, the app follows all of these.

End-to-end product cycle

I went through all of the stages on my own, with huge help from our friend, Claude.

  • Idea refinement, defining what the thing is and what it is not.
  • Architecture investigation, understanding the possibilities and limitations of the platform. The implementation of some desired features conflicted with the design principles.
  • Proof of concept and planning, to figure out how doable this would be with what I had at my disposal.
  • Market and business considerations, to prove that there is some value in it, and how it would work out in practice.
  • Building and executing. While the heavy lifting is indeed done by the model, a lot of learning is still required to get it off the ground.
  • Android porting, since I understood that the problem I had was also something shared across different platforms. A significant amount of learning, since I’m not familiar with the Android and Wear OS environment.
  • Language flexibility, to allow the app to be enjoyed across the world. The app is available in 6 languages, and I had a lot of fun optimising the translation process not only for the app, but for the associated items (website, app store listing…).
  • Testing, testing, testing — that took a lot more effort than expected. As a first-time developer, this was a huge learning experience, in particular for the Android platform.
  • Marketing, to share with the world what WristBuddy can do! While this was mainly done for my own enjoyment, I truly believe it’s valuable to other users as well.

Go check it out!

Even if you don’t have an Apple Watch or Wear OS watch, download the app (it’s free) and take a look.

You can visit the WristBuddy website for detailed scrollable screenshots, a list of all use cases, and more info about the app.

iOS — iPhone & Apple Watch

iPhone — the full status the watch mirrors
Apple Watch — the same, at a glance

iOS + watchOS — Get it on the App Store

Android — phone & Wear OS

Android phone — the full status the watch mirrors
Wear OS — the same, at a glance

Android + Wear OS — Get it on Google Play

The website

The marketing website was a lot of fun to put together. It had to host the Privacy Policy, but it also has a list of all the use cases. The design principles for the app apply here too. No cookies, no data capture. The website also renders differently depending on the language and the device the user is using.

The piece I like the most is the ability to scroll through the mock-up of the app in the Phone and the Watch. Have a go at it too!

wristbuddy.app — try the scrollable phone and watch mock-ups.

How you can help…

Do you know someone who uses an Apple Watch or Android Watch?

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