The “Click to Pray eRosary” is a smart gadget shaped like a regular rosary and designed to educate young, technology-focused youths how to pray the rosary.

The smart eRosary can be worn as a bracelet and is activated by making the sign of the cross. It comes with a companion smartphone app which synchronizes with the gadget and allows access to an audio guide, exclusive images, personalized content, and also tracks the user’s progress. According to the Vatican website, the eRosary is designed “to help young people pray the Rosary for peace and to contemplate the Gospel”.

Similar to a standard rosary, the new high-tech version consists of  ten consecutive black agate and hematite rosary beads, and a “smart cross” where all the data is stored. After activating the device by making the sign of the cross the user has the option to pray the standard rosary, a contemplative Rosary, or one of several thematic rosaries that will be updated every year.

“Once the prayer begins, the smart rosary shows the user’s progress throughout the different mysteries and keeps track of each rosary completed,” the Vatican News website states.

Designed by a company called GadgeTek Inc. (GTI) and produced by Acer, the eRosary is part of “Click to Pray”, the official prayer app of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, which connects thousands of people in prayer every day. It is compatible with both Android and Apple smartphones.

In case a smart rosary sounds just like the kind of gadget you want to spend your money on, the Click to Pray eRosary is available for purchase via Acer’s Italian online store, for €99 ($110).

 

The Vatican seems to be on a mission to connect to youths via technology, no matter how awkward its ideas to so may be. Just last year we featured another of their “high-tech” attempts, a Pokemon GO-like mobile game called “Follow JC GO!“, which challenged users to “catch” saints and other religious figures in augmented reality.