Deploying WristMSG to your fleet

A guide for IT administrators evaluating or deploying WristMSG across a managed Android device fleet — sales teams, field technicians, anyone on Wear OS who needs Google Chat at a glance.

At a glance

Distribution	Public Play Store, or Managed Google Play (organization-private)
Required permissions	Notification access, post notifications, foreground service
Network footprint	Phone ↔ paired Wear OS watch via Google's Wear OS Data Layer. No external endpoints.
Data collected by us	None. Zero servers in our architecture.
MDM compatibility	Standard Managed Google Play distribution today. Advanced managed configuration on v1.1+ roadmap.
Support SLA	1 business-day response on the Teams tier (≥10 seats). See Teams for details.

What WristMSG does for your team

WristMSG lets users reply to Google Chat messages from their Wear OS smartwatch without needing to take out their phone. Useful when:

Field technicians are on a job and need to acknowledge dispatch messages
Sales reps are in a customer meeting and need to triage a question from the team
Anyone in motion needs to send "on my way" without breaking stride

It's a focused tool. It doesn't replace Google Chat. It doesn't read message archives. It works only on incoming notifications that arrive while the user has it installed.

Distribution options

Option A — Public Play Store (simplest)

Users install WristMSG directly. Suitable for small teams who self-manage their devices.

✓ Zero IT setup
✓ Updates automatic
✗ No central license control (Pro tier purchases are per-user)
✗ No central rollout control

Option B — Managed Google Play (recommended for fleets)

WristMSG is available as a private app for your organization through Managed Google Play. Your MDM (Intune, Workspace ONE, Google Workspace, etc.) installs it silently on managed devices.

✓ Silent install, no user action required
✓ Update control via MDM
✓ Centralized version pinning
✓ Suitable for kiosk / shared device deployments
✗ Requires Android Enterprise enrollment

To enable Managed Google Play distribution for your org:

Email support@benri.tech with subject "Managed Google Play enrollment — [Your org name]"
We'll send you the private app link to add to your Managed Google Play catalog
Your MDM picks it up like any other managed app

Permission setup for users

WristMSG requires two user actions on first launch. Plan for these in your onboarding flow:

1. Notification Listener Access (required)

WristMSG reads Google Chat notifications to forward them to the watch. Android requires the user to explicitly grant this in system Settings. The app shows a clear prompt:

"Notification Access: Denied — Grant Notification Access"

Tapping the button opens Settings → Apps → Special access → Notification access → WristMSG → toggle ON. This is a one-time setup.

For MDM administrators: this permission can be pre-granted via a managed configuration policy in some MDM tools (Workspace ONE, Intune custom OEMConfig). If your MDM supports app permission pre-grants for BIND_NOTIFICATION_LISTENER_SERVICE, users see no prompt.

2. Battery optimization exemption (recommended)

For reliable overnight operation, WristMSG asks the user to exempt itself from battery optimization. The Settings → Reliability section has a "Keep Tokens Alive" mode with three options:

Mode	Use case
Off	Casual users. Tokens may be lost overnight; new incoming messages refresh them.
While Charging	Recommended default. Reliable token persistence during typical overnight charging.
Always On	Field deployments where the user may not charge nightly. Posts a persistent foreground notification.

For field technicians who don't charge their phones every night, set the default expectation that they should choose Always On during user training.

OEM-specific reliability notes

Aggressive battery management on certain manufacturers can kill background services more aggressively than stock Android. If your fleet uses these OEMs, instruct users to also:

Samsung: Settings → Battery and device care → Battery → Background usage limits → Never sleeping apps → add WristMSG
Xiaomi (MIUI): Settings → Apps → WristMSG → Battery saver → No restrictions; also Security → Permissions → Autostart → enable WristMSG
OnePlus (OxygenOS): Settings → Battery → Background process management → WristMSG → Don't optimize
Huawei (EMUI): Settings → Apps → WristMSG → Power consumption → Manual → enable all toggles

In a future release, WristMSG will detect these OEMs and walk the user through the right path automatically. Tracked on the v1.1+ roadmap.

Privacy & security posture

For your security review checklist:

Zero data collection. WristMSG has no servers. See the Privacy Policy for the complete data flow.
No third-party SDKs. No analytics, advertising, or tracking libraries are bundled.
Local-only storage. All app data lives in Android's app-private encrypted storage. Uninstalling deletes everything.
Encrypted phone-watch link. The Wear OS Data Layer (operated by Google) handles the encryption between paired devices.
No microphone access. Voice dictation uses the watch's standard system voice input; WristMSG never sees audio.
No background data uploads. The app only communicates with the paired watch via Google's Data Layer.
No persistent identifiers generated by us.

Network traffic to expect: only Google Wear OS Data Layer traffic (phone ↔ watch via Google Play Services). If your MDM inspects network traffic, expect zero traffic to non-Google endpoints from WristMSG.

What's on the v1.1+ roadmap

Items listed here are not in v1.0. We're publishing them so you can plan ahead:

Real Play Billing integration for Pro tier purchases (v1.0 ships as free-for-all for early supporters)
Android Enterprise managed configurations — IT-pushed priority contact roster, premium unlock via license key, force-enable settings org-wide
OEM-specific battery onboarding — automated walk-through for Samsung / Xiaomi / Huawei / OnePlus
Crash diagnostics (opt-in) — Firebase Crashlytics behind a user opt-in toggle, admin-controllable via managed config
Chat history — last ~10 messages per contact visible from the watch app
Audit/export hook — export the on-device contact and history cache as JSON for compliance review

If you have specific enterprise needs not covered here, we'd like to hear from you — feedback from early customers shapes which items get prioritized.

Getting help

For IT administrators and procurement teams:

📧 support@benri.tech with subject line "Enterprise — [your topic]"
⏱ 1 business-day response on the Teams tier (≥10 seats)
📋 For a 30-minute walk-through call, ask in your initial email

For individual users:

📧 support@benri.tech — best-effort response

Pricing for organizations

Free (any number of users) — 3 contacts, basic features
Pro (individual purchase via Play Store, post-v1.1) — 5 contacts, priority slots, advanced tile customization
Teams (≥10 seats, contact sales) — Pro features for all users, MDM-friendly licensing, business-hours email support, Managed Google Play distribution
Enterprise SLA (add-on) — 4-hour response time, named contact, ask for a quote

See the Teams page or email support for current pricing.