Remember the days when ZEC didn’t have a mobile wallet, now we have choices!!!
I’ve been testing wallets over the last week.
Test method is ‘quite nasty’ but simple so should be close to the average user experience
- Import an OLD wallet (approx 200 txns dating back to block 846200)
- Timer starts when the import starts, stops when funds are spendable
- Phone is low-end & very common model here in Chile (Nokia Android-One, Model TA-1115)
My plan (although, don’t hold me to this) is to repeat the test every time a new version gets released & update this post.
ZECwallet Lite (Version 1.7.0)
Time-to-sync : 7m 21s
There’s always been lots of things to love about ZECwallet & Aditya has been involved in this since forever - so this was my ‘daily driver’ wallet.
Sync time is fast, the last update included ‘Blaze Sync’ which ‘scans backwards’ from the highest block, plus enhancements in their lightwalletd server. For my ancient test wallet just over 7 minutes is acceptable. Plenty of features & nice things in the UI.
Zwallet (Version 1.0.7-48 Beta)
Time-to-sync : 3 minutes, 39 seconds
This is new and insanely fast, uses a ‘Warp Sync’ method which is extremely careful to only calculate what it needs to during the scan - the goal is ‘extreme efficiency’.
Its the fastest (ie: factor of two!!) and the UI is developing rapidly with more toys & features. Not released yet but its very, very close.
Some new features, creates ‘Contacts’ from shielded transaction memos, better highlight for notes you have excluded from transactions. All good stuff that’s worth checking out.
NightHawk (Version 1.0.20)
Its not my nature to be mean but this wallet did not work.
Version: 1.0.19 : Failed after 10 hours 15 mins, sync at 89%, died with ‘Scan Error’
Version: 1.0.20 : Failed after 6 hours 16 mins, sync at 70%, froze with no error
Your-mileage-will-vary if you create a new wallet or import one that’s not old but don’t expect it to work forever - my test wallet dates back to block 846200 & that’s only 14 months.
It uses the standard SDK so no scanning enhancements - finding your ‘encrypted needles in the zcash haystack’ is a lot of work.
ECC Reference wallet (in progress)
EDIT: Fixed it!! Problem was my Android Studio setup - it needs the Arctic Fox version 2020.3.1 from Android Studio Preview | Android Developers
Its important to remember the Ref Wallet isn’t a real production app, its a tool ECC created to test & develop libraries and they released it so the rest of us could learn from example.
Its also a very pretty wallet & in my biased opinion has the most impressive UI.
Importing the wallet happens in stages and uses the same seed words as ZECwallet & Zwallet :-
- Downloading : 42 minutes, 39 seconds
- Preparing To Scan : 43 minutes, 52 seconds (total elapsed)
- Scanning : (In progress : 56%, 3 hours 32 minutes total elapsed)
(Its now silly-o-clock & I’m not staying up all night to time this. Assuming it carries on at the current rate it will be approx 5 hours 43 minutes total elapsed, I’ll check it in the morning)
Sadly, the wallet didn’t sync. At some point during the night it either lost its connection or the phone went to sleep. This morning it started scanning again from the beginning.
Unstoppable (in progress)
This doesn’t allow you to restore a ZEC wallet using the standard recovery words, which means I cant test it.
TL;DR : …but at the end so you read it anyway 
Zwallet is the one to watch, join the beta program on Google Play and help test it !!!
EDITS:-
- Corrected sync method outline for ZECwallet & Zwallet
- Attempted to build ECC Reference Wallet, failed due to broken Android Studio install
- Attempted to test Unstoppable Wallet
- New Zwallet version
- ECC Reference Wallet
