Home Sweet Phone Privacy Policy
Last updated: 4 October 2026
Provider: tomople (https://tomople.com, "we" or "us")
This page is the privacy policy for our smartphone app "Home Sweet Phone" (らくアプリ) only. Our other apps are covered by a separate, shared privacy policy. For Home Sweet Phone, this page takes precedence.
The app is normally set up by a family member who lives far away and used every day by the person themselves, who is usually an older adult. That is exactly why we spell out what stays on the device and what leaves it.
Buttons, face photos, reminders and notes never reach us. Only when "How they are doing" (the family check-in) is turned on on the user’s phone do we keep the small record described in 3-(5) on a server we contract (Supabase).
1. No advertising, no tracking
The app contains no advertising. It does not use an advertising identifier (IDFA or the Android Advertising ID) and it never shows a tracking permission prompt.
- The advertising SDK (Google AdMob) was removed from the app in September 2026.
- On Android, the advertising ID permission (com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID) is explicitly removed from the app manifest.
- We do not track users for advertising and we do not sell personal information to third parties.
- The app does not use web browser cookies.
2. What stays on the device only
The following is stored only on your device and is never sent to our servers:
- the contents and order of the buttons (tiles) on the home screen
- speed-dial names, phone numbers and family face photos
- reminders and their wording
- the text of notes
- the emergency contact
- settings such as text size, read-aloud and colours
- the 4-digit code that protects the settings
The file produced by "full backup" and the RAKU1- code used for remote setup are also created on the device. The code and the file are the content itself; they do not pass through any server of ours. Where you send them (e-mail, LINE, AirDrop, a files app) is your choice, and we are not responsible for how the destination handles them.
Note that the remote-setup code does not include face photos, because that would make the code too long to paste.
3. What leaves the device
Outside services are used in these five places only.
(1) Weather — Open-Meteo
- Weather is off by default. The app only communicates when you turn it on.
- If you choose "current location", the app obtains a low-accuracy, while-in-use location and sends only the latitude and longitude rounded to two decimal places (roughly a 1 km square) to Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com). Nothing more precise is kept on the device either.
- If you choose a place by town name, no location permission is needed. The town name you type is sent to the Open-Meteo geocoding search, and the approximate coordinates of the chosen town are stored.
- No name, phone number, e-mail address, device identifier or account is sent. Open-Meteo has no user account for this.
- Turning weather back off also deletes the stored coordinates from the device.
(2) App icons — Apple iTunes
- On the "add a button" screen, icons for a fixed, predetermined list of apps are fetched from Apple’s itunes.apple.com.
- Only the product identifiers of that fixed list are sent. We do not send what is installed on your device or which apps you use.
(3) Crash reports and usage — Google Firebase
- Crash records (Firebase Crashlytics) and a coarse record of which screens were opened and how often (Firebase Analytics) are sent to Google.
- These records carry an identifier for the device or installation. It is not an advertising identifier and is not linked to your name or phone number.
- What is sent is only categories and counts, such as which kind of button was pressed or how many tiles are on the home screen.
- Phone numbers, e-mail addresses, names, address book entries, note text, photos and location are never sent.
(4) Payments — RevenueCat / Apple / Google
- To buy and restore the one-time purchase that shows more in "How they are doing", the app communicates with RevenueCat and with the App Store / Google Play.
- We do not pass your name or e-mail address to RevenueCat. Only an anonymous identifier is used to recognise the purchase.
- Card numbers and other payment details are handled by Apple or Google. We never receive them.
(5) Family check-in "How they are doing" — Supabase / Firebase Cloud Messaging
- Used only when it is turned on on the user’s phone. It is off by default. Once on, the user’s Today screen says "Letting your family know you are OK", and the user can stop it at any time.
- Sent from the user’s phone: the times the app was opened and how many times, how many times "Taken ✓" was tapped and the kind of reminder (medicine, doctor and so on — never the medicine name or reminder text), how many reminders were due that day, battery level, that the emergency button was pressed, whether notifications are allowed, time zone and app version.
- Never sent: location, who was called, contacts, notes, photos, medicine names, e-mail content, names or phone numbers.
- This is kept on a Supabase server we contract (Tokyo region) and can be read only by the family phones joined to the same check-in. The pass phrase used to join is not stored on the server; only a value used to verify it is.
- An anonymous sign-in (no name, no e-mail address) is used to tell devices apart.
- To alert family phones (a day with no use past the usual time, the emergency button, or when updates stop arriving), the family phones’ notification token is stored and alerts are sent through Google Firebase Cloud Messaging.
- Daily records are deleted after 31 days. A check-in with no phone joined to it any more is deleted together with its records.
4. Device permissions
These are the permissions the app asks for and why. Each is requested only at the point where it is needed.
- Contacts: to read the device address book so a family member can be placed on a button or speed dial. What is read never leaves the device.
- Photos and camera: to choose a face photo or a button image, to take a photo, and for the magnifier. Images never leave the device.
- Location: used only when you choose "current location" for weather, and when the emergency button shares where you are with your family. It is never obtained while you are not using the app.
- Notifications: to show reminders for medicine and appointments.
- Phone: to place a call from a button.
You can withdraw any of these permissions at any time in the device settings. The rest of the app keeps working.
5. About the emergency contact
Pressing the emergency button prepares a draft message containing a map link to your current location. You decide whether to send it. We never receive that location. If "How they are doing" is on, the family is told that the emergency button was pressed (only the time). No location is sent.
The emergency contact feature is not a substitute for calling the emergency services. Depending on signal and device state, it may fail to send or may report an inaccurate location.
6. Payment is one-time
The only paid feature is seeing more in "How they are doing" (medicine checks, the 7-day and 30-day record, and more than one family member watching). It is a single one-time payment, not a monthly or yearly auto-renewing subscription. See the terms of use for details.
7. Older adults and their families
In most cases a family member living elsewhere sets the app up, and the person themselves uses it every day. What is set up — buttons, face photos, reminders — stays on that person’s device and never reaches us. "How they are doing" only ever works in a way the user can see. It is not a hidden tracker.
The app is not directed to children and is not intended for anyone under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
8. Deleting your data
- Deleting the app deletes the buttons, face photos, reminders, notes and settings stored on the device. Create a "full backup" first if you want to keep them.
- Turning weather back off deletes the stored coordinates.
- If you want the crash and usage records held by Firebase deleted, write to the e-mail address below and we will arrange deletion using the device identifier.
- Tapping "Stop sending" on the user’s phone stops sending from that moment. Tapping "Remove this link" on a family phone removes that phone’s link. A check-in with no phone left is deleted together with its records.
- If you want the "How they are doing" records deleted straight away, write to the e-mail address below.
9. Privacy policies of the services we use
The privacy policies of the external services used by the app:
RevenueCat (purchase management)
Supabase (server for "How they are doing")
10. Changes to this policy
We may change this policy as the app is improved or the law changes. Significant changes will be announced in the app or on this page.
11. Contact
tomople
A reply may take a few days.