Apple Watch, Now With On-Device Siri

The KidCash Apple Watch app just got a major upgrade. Three things changed, all of them about getting from "I want to add money" to money is added in under five seconds.

1. Siri intents that actually resolve on the wrist

If you tried saying "Hey Siri, add $5 to Rafi on KidCash" on your watch over the last few months, you probably hit a wall: Siri would prompt for the kid name, then bounce you to your iPhone with a "Continue in Messages" fallback.

That's gone. Voice input now resolves on-device.

The fix was technical but worth explaining: Apple's AppEntity API lets you define types (like a kid) that Siri can present as a wrist-native picker. But to match a spoken name against those entities, you also need to implement EntityStringQuery — without it, Siri has the entity list but no way to map the user's voice to it. We had the first half but not the second; the watch was falling back to a text-input UI it doesn't have, so it punted to Messages.

Adding EntityStringQuery (with exact → prefix → contains → fuzzy fallback) makes voice resolve on the watch directly. Saying "Rafi" now matches the kid named Rafi without leaving the wrist.

2. Custom amounts via the Digital Crown

The previous watch UI gave you three quick-add tiles per kid (+$1, +$5, +$10). For amounts outside those, you had to open the iPhone app.

We added a Custom… tile that opens a sheet with a Digital Crown amount picker. Spin to dial in any amount up to $200 in $0.25 increments. Toggle between Add and Subtract. Pick a note from a preset list (Chores, Allowance, Bonus, Bought a Toy, etc.) or dictate one. Done.

This is the right interaction for the watch — fine motor control via the Crown is what the device is built for, and it stays in the wrist instead of routing through your phone.

3. Note presets passed through to the transaction

Quietly, we now pass the selected note all the way through the flow. The previous watch app hardcoded "Quick add from Watch" as the note on every transaction. Useful in zero cases.

Now your transactions show whatever note you (or the preset list) picked. Searching transaction history for "chores" actually returns chore-pay transactions instead of an undifferentiated wall of "Quick add from Watch."

Plan requirement

Apple Watch, Siri Shortcuts, and the upcoming MCP server for AI assistants are all part of the Family ($99/year) and Big Family ($129/year) plans. They're powered by the same API key — generate one in Settings, drop it on the watch via Watch Connectivity, and all three integrations work simultaneously.

How to install

1. Open the Watch app on your iPhone
2. Scroll to KidCash and tap Install (or update if you already have the previous version)
3. Open KidCash on your phone first, wait a beat (this pushes your API key over via Watch Connectivity)
4. Open KidCash on your watch — you should see the kid list, not the "Connecting" screen

If the watch shows "Connecting" for more than ~10 seconds, force-quit the iPhone app and reopen it; the API key push fires on applicationDidBecomeActive.

— The KidCash Team

P.S. The same Siri intents that work on the wrist also work on iPhone. Saying "Hey Siri, how much does Rafi have on KidCash?" works from version 1.5. Voice has always been a stronger surface for kid-money than typing — it's just that now the watch holds up its end of that promise.