WeatherRing is a 24-hour weather watch face and phone companion. It is a free download on Google Play with a 7-day free trial, followed by a one-time €0.99 in-app unlock that covers the phone app, the watch app and the watch face (existing buyers who purchased WeatherRing before version 1.5 keep full access automatically).
What we collect
- Location, on the device (optional). If you choose Current location, the phone (and, if needed, the watch) reads GPS so we can fetch weather for that place. A chosen city is stored as a name and coordinates. You can search a city instead and never grant location.
- Weather and air quality for that place. The phone requests a weather forecast and hourly air quality (EU AQI) over HTTPS. The watch does the same only if the phone data is stale.
- Appearance and the current day’s ring. Settings, the 24-hour forecast cache, and the chosen place stay on the device and sync between the paired phone and watch over the Wear OS Data Layer.
We do not create accounts. We do not show ads. We do not sell data.
Where data goes
WeatherRing sends the place you chose over HTTPS:
- Forecast: coordinates to weather.weatherring.net (self-hosted Open-Meteo). If that is slow or down, the same coordinates go to WeatherAPI.com (api.weatherapi.com) as the forecast backup. When the phone can’t be reached, the watch may send the same approximate coordinates directly to weather.weatherring.net.
- Air quality (EU AQI): when Air quality (smog haze) is enabled, coordinates go to weather.weatherring.net/v1/air-quality (Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, CAMS / Open-Meteo, CC BY 4.0). Air quality is skipped when using the WeatherAPI.com backup.
- City search: the typed city name and the app’s language to weather.weatherring.net. If that doesn’t answer, or finds nothing for a name in a non-Latin script, the typed name goes to WeatherAPI.com (api.weatherapi.com) as the search backup. When you change the app’s language, your saved cities are looked up again on weather.weatherring.net to show their names in that language.
- Live GPS place name: A current GPS fix from the phone or the watch goes to BigDataCloud (api.bigdatacloud.net), or to WeatherAPI.com (api.weatherapi.com) if BigDataCloud doesn’t answer. Not used for a saved city.
Wear Data Layer traffic stays on the paired phone and watch.
Location, settings, and the day’s cache live in app storage. Uninstalling WeatherRing removes them. We do not keep a server-side profile; the only thing our server keeps is the buyer and trial check below.
Buyer & trial check
Once a day in the background (and when you start a trial or unlock the app), the phone app checks your licence and trial status with weather.weatherring.net (/v1/license/register and /v1/license/trial). This uses the signed response Google Play gives the app. The watch never sends it.
For each record, our server keeps only:
- a scrambled form (a keyed hash, HMAC-SHA256) of an ID that Google Play creates for WeatherRing and your Google account, never the ID itself, plus the 8-character Support code derived from it
- whether it belongs to an existing paid buyer, a 7-day free trial, a one-time in-app unlock, a refunded purchase, a tester or a free copy
- the time of the first and the last check-in, and the trial start/expiry timestamps if applicable
The server does not receive your Google Play order number (GPA.…) or any payment details, and does not keep a history of daily check-ins. Separately, it keeps daily totals of active users (plain numbers with nothing personal in them).
To stop a response being reused, the server also keeps a fingerprint of each Google Play response (a hash with nothing personal in it) for about 24 hours, then deletes it automatically.
No email, name, location or device ID is linked to the record. We don’t log the IP address of a licence check; it is used only briefly in memory to limit abuse. Like any server, our firewall may record connection-level network data for security, kept for a few weeks and not linked to your licence record.
We use this to recognise existing pre-1.5 buyers and in-app unlocks across reinstalls, to manage the 7-day free trial, to catch refunds, and to count how many people use the app.
How long we keep it
- Buyer, in-app unlock and tester records are never deleted automatically, so your purchase is still recognised when you reinstall.
- Records linked to a trial or an in-app purchase are kept so trial and unlock status work reliably across reinstalls; other non-buyer records are deleted automatically 12 months after their last check-in.
- You can ask us to delete your record at any time; see Delete your data below.
On your phone and watch. The app version is sent with each licence check. The unlock/trial state and your 8-character Support code are stored on the phone and included in Android backup. “Copy both logs” includes the purchase-check history, but only when you choose to share those logs. The watch only receives the result of the check.
The app’s About and Unlock screens link to this page under “Privacy policy”.
Delete your data
To have the data our server keeps about your WeatherRing licence or trial record deleted:
- Email support@weatherring.net and ask us to delete your data.
- Include your 8-character Support code shown on the About screen and on the Unlock screen in the phone app.
We then delete the matching record from our server.
What is deleted: your licence/trial record, meaning the scrambled ID, the Support code, the buyer, unlock, trial, refunded, tester and free-copy flags, and the check-in and trial timestamps. After deletion, WeatherRing no longer recognises your prior purchase or unlock.
What is kept: daily totals of active users, which are plain numbers with nothing personal in them. Our nightly off-server backups are kept for up to 30 days, so deleted data also disappears from backups within 30 days.
On your phone: uninstalling WeatherRing or clearing its app data removes the data stored on your phone. Android backup is controlled in your Google account.
Permissions
- Approximate / precise location: optional.
- Use my location (app on screen) may use precise location for a one-shot fix. It does not turn on Follow your location and does not ask for “Allow all the time.”
- Follow your location is off until you turn it on under Location. Then WeatherRing reads approximate location at the interval you choose under Refresh every in the app (every 1, 2, 3 or 6 hours) so the weather on the watch can stay current when you travel. That needs “Allow all the time.” Turn the switch off anytime; the last coordinates stay and weather still refreshes for that place.
- A chosen city never uses background location. You can search a city instead and never grant location.
- Internet: HTTPS to weather.weatherring.net (forecast, air quality, city search and the licence/trial check), WeatherAPI.com (forecast backup, city search backup and place name backup), and BigDataCloud (live GPS place name on the phone and watch).
- Nearby devices / Bluetooth: Wear OS Data Layer with the paired watch.
Children
WeatherRing is not directed at children.