Privacy Policy — Startlight Launcher
Provisional document (v5) — pending legal review. Targeted compliance: Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and Google Play program requirements. Last updated: 2026-10-07.
1. In short
Startlight Launcher sells no data, shows no ads and does not track your usage. It is a home screen for Android TV: what it reads and saves stays on your TV. There is no account, no tracker and no usage analytics. The only things that leave the device are what the online wallpaper, shown by default after installation, and the services you turn on require (section 4).
2. Data controller
Startlight Launcher is published by JOLABS40.
Contact: contact@jolabs40.net
3. Data saved on the TV
These items stay on your Android TV device and are never sent to JOLABS40:
| Data | Purpose | Storage |
|---|---|---|
| Rows, menu, top bar, side panel, theme, app at startup | Build your home screen | App internal storage |
| Background image or video you choose | Wallpaper | Copy in internal storage |
| Launch count per app | Sort “most used” rows | App internal storage |
| Parental code | Lock apps and time slots | Salted hash, encrypted with the Android Keystore |
| Your Home Assistant address and token, chosen entities | Show and control your devices | Encrypted with the Android Keystore |
| City chosen for the weather and its coordinates | Fetch the weather | App internal storage |
| Addresses of the calendars you add | Show your appointments on the idle screen and in the planner | App internal storage |
| StartLight Pro purchase: bought or not | Unlock Pro features | App internal storage |
4. Network connections
A fresh install opens on an “online source” wallpaper, with the suggested sources already ticked: from the first launch, without any action on your part, the app therefore contacts Reddit to fetch images. Every other outgoing connection follows a setting that you turn on:
| Destination | When | What is sent |
|---|---|---|
| The wallpaper sources the app suggests: Reddit (www.reddit.com, old.reddit.com as a fallback, images on i.redd.it and preview.redd.it) and Wallhaven (wallhaven.cc, images on w.wallhaven.cc) | As long as the “online source” wallpaper is selected — which it is by default after installation. Without StartLight Pro, only the first ticked source provides images: Reddit at first; Wallhaven if you tick it instead, or with Pro, which mixes the ticked sources. Choosing another wallpaper (solid, gradient, an image of your own…) stops these connections | An ordinary web request: the source’s list of images, then the images picked |
| The server of each other address you add as a wallpaper source — for example a shared Google Photos album (the album page, then its photos on lh3.googleusercontent.com) | If you add that address and tick it, as long as the “online source” wallpaper is selected | An ordinary web request to that address |
| MET Norway, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (api.met.no) | If a city is chosen for the weather, as long as the home screen or the idle screen shows the weather, at most once every half hour. A Home Assistant weather entity, if you chose one, comes first: the city is then only a fallback | The city’s coordinates, rounded to four decimal places |
| Nominatim, OpenStreetMap’s search (nominatim.openstreetmap.org) | When you start a search for a weather city — never while you type | The name you typed |
| The server of each calendar you add by its iCal address (Google, Apple…) | If you add a calendar, at most once every half hour | An ordinary web request to that address |
| Your Home Assistant instance | If you configure one | Requests for the chosen entities, with your token |
| The image servers of your TV apps | To show the artwork of the content they publish | An ordinary image request |
| Google Play, through the TV’s Play Store | To show the price of StartLight Pro, buy it and restore a past purchase | What Google Play processes for a purchase, under its own policy (section 6); nothing is sent to JOLABS40 |
| Your phone, on your local network | While the pairing screen is open | A setup page, protected by a code shown on the TV |
Like any web request, these connections reveal your router’s IP address to the services involved. No advertising or account identifier is attached.
MET Norway and Nominatim therefore see your router’s IP address too. The app introduces itself to them by its name, version, website and the address contact@jolabs40.net, with nothing about you. What they keep is governed by their own policies: MET Norway privacy policy, OpenStreetMap Foundation privacy policy.
Versions 1.3.0 and earlier also contacted, after a StartLight Pro purchase, a JOLABS40 license server (startlight-license, hosted by Cloudflare): they sent it the purchase token given by Google Play and a Google Play integrity token, which it checked with Google without keeping anything. Later versions no longer contact it, and this server was shut down on 2026-10-03.
Versions 1.4.1 and earlier queried Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com) for the weather, air quality and city search. Open-Meteo states that it keeps its technical logs — IP address and requests, city coordinates included — for at most 90 days, without linking them to any identity, then deletes them (Open-Meteo terms).
5. Android permissions and their use
| Permission | Why |
|---|---|
| Internet, network state | The connections above; the network icon in the top bar |
| Read TV channels and programs | Show “Continue watching” and the rows your apps publish |
| Stop background processes, request uninstall | The task manager and app list buttons; uninstalling always goes through Android’s confirmation |
| Usage access (optional, granted in a system screen) | Screen time and storage per app |
| Notification access (optional, granted in a system screen) | Show your notifications and what is playing; nothing is transmitted |
| Shizuku (optional) | Process details in the task manager |
| HippieTV catalog (optional) | Read HippieTV’s rows on the device, if you allow it |
6. What JOLABS40 does not do
Startlight Launcher uses none of the following:
- no analytics service (Google Analytics, Firebase Analytics, etc.);
- no advertising network or third-party tracker;
- no user account or advertising identifier;
- no payment handled by JOLABS40.
The StartLight Pro purchase goes entirely through Google Play. JOLABS40 receives neither your name, nor your address, nor your payment method: Google Play processes the purchase under its own privacy policy. The app checks, on the TV, Google’s signature on the purchase; nothing about it is sent to JOLABS40.
The “Data safety” section of the Google Play listing declares it as follows: approximate location (the weather city, looked up on OpenStreetMap then sent to MET Norway), collected for app functionality, never shared or sold.
7. Data sharing
No data is sold, or shared for advertising. The only transmissions are those of section 4. A backup of your settings, if you ask for one, is sent to your phone through the pairing page; it contains neither your Home Assistant token nor your parental code.
8. Your rights
Since JOLABS40 keeps no data about you, there is nothing on our side to access, rectify or erase. You delete all local data by uninstalling the app or through Android settings (“Clear data”). For any question: contact@jolabs40.net.
9. Security
The Home Assistant token and the parental code are encrypted at rest with the Android Keystore. The pairing page is only served on your local network, while the screen that opens it is shown, and requires the code displayed on the TV; its traffic is not encrypted, so use it on a trusted network only.
10. Children
Startlight Launcher is intended for a general audience and knowingly collects no data about children. Its parental code lets you lock apps and time slots from the home screen.
11. Changes
This policy may evolve with the app. The version in force is dated above. Any substantial change will be published on this page.
12. Contact
JOLABS40 — contact@jolabs40.net