The short version
Wx Advanced does not collect your personal data unless you choose to send it: the only personal detail it can carry is an email address you type into a problem report so that the developer can answer you. There is no account, no advertising and no tracking, and everything you set up stays on your own devices. If you agree, and only then, the app shares anonymous counts of how it is used, to help improve it. We never sell your data and never track you across other apps. If you send the developer a problem report, it carries what you chose to put in it, and nothing more.
Your location
Sharing your device's location is optional. If you choose Use My Current Location, the app reads your device's location to show your forecast, radar and nearest official weather station. You can type a town instead, and you can turn location access off at any time in your device's Settings.
If you connect your own weather station, the app uses the home location set in your Home Assistant in the same way. It remembers that location on your device, so the forecast still works when Home Assistant cannot be reached, and forgets it when you disconnect.
Whichever it is, the location is rounded to roughly half a mile (about 1 km) before it is sent to a weather service, and it is not linked to your identity.
Your weather station
If you connect your own station through Home Assistant, the access token is stored on your device in the Apple Keychain and the server address in the app's settings. They are shared only with Wx Advanced's own widgets on that device and, over the encrypted link between a paired iPhone and Apple Watch, with the Wx Advanced watch app. The token is sent only to the Home Assistant server you entered. The app only reads from that server; it cannot change anything on it.
Your station's readings go from your Home Assistant to your devices and nowhere else.
Weather services the app contacts
Your device requests data directly from public weather services. Like any website you visit, they receive your IP address, and where the request is about a place, the rounded location. They are:
- Open-Meteo (forecasts, and the wind and pressure on the map): open-meteo.com/en/terms
- RainViewer (radar images): rainviewer.com/privacy.html
- U.S. National Weather Service and NOAA (alerts, fronts, highs and lows): weather.gov/privacy
- U.S. Aviation Weather Center (airport and other official station readings): aviationweather.gov
- Apple (the map itself, searching for a town, and naming the place you are in): apple.com/legal/privacy
Their own privacy policies apply. The developer does not receive or store those requests.
Helping improve the app (only if you agree)
The app asks once whether you would like to help improve it. If you answer Not Now, nothing in this section happens. You can change your answer at any time in Settings > Privacy.
If you agree, the app sends its developer:
- which screens and features get used;
- which weather services fail to answer, by the service's name and the broad kind of failure;
- that the app stopped unexpectedly, with the system's code for why;
- and with each of those, the app's version, the kind of device (an iPhone, say), its system version and the app's language.
It never sends your location, the names of your places, your Home Assistant address or access token, or anything you have typed. Each item is made only of words from a fixed list, whole numbers, and yes or no, so there is nowhere for those to go.
What is sent carries a random number for the installation, so that devices can be counted without knowing whose they are. It is not linked to your identity. Reset anonymous ID in Settings > Privacy replaces it, and See exactly what's sent on the same page lists the last 100 items your device sent, word for word.
The counts are kept for the developer by PostHog, an analytics service, on servers in the United States: posthog.com/privacy. It is set not to keep the internet address they arrive from and not to work out a place from it. They are kept for up to one year. They are never sold, never shared for advertising, and never used to track you across other apps or websites.
Reporting a problem (only when you send one)
You can write to the developer from inside the app with Report a Problem. A report is only ever sent by you, one at a time, when you press Send. It carries:
- what you wrote;
- a picture of the app, and a short recording of it, if you kept them. Both are the app's own drawing of its own window, so they show only Wx Advanced: your photos are never read, and nothing else on your screen can be in them. Look them over before sending, because they show whatever the app was showing, and a recording shows anything you opened in the app while it ran. That can include the names of your places and your weather;
- a few facts about your copy of the app, if you leave them in: its version, the kind of device, its system version, the app's language, where your weather comes from (your own station, an official one or the sample) and which weather services are working. Every line is shown before you send. Never your location, your Home Assistant address or your access token;
- an email address, only if you ask to be answered by email and type one in. It is used to answer that report and for nothing else, and is removed from the report when you delete it or 90 days after it is closed.
A report always says which kind of device and which version of the app it came from, and, if you started it from one of the app's cards, which card.
Reports go to a small service the developer runs on this website, which is hosted by Vercel. It files each report as a private note in a project on GitHub that is private to the developer. Pictures and recordings are kept in Vercel's storage at private, unlisted web addresses: each address is long and random and is written only in the private report, but anyone who held the exact address could open the file. Reports are sorted, and may be answered, with the help of an AI assistant (Claude, made by Anthropic), which reads them to do so. Those companies' own privacy policies apply to what they hold: vercel.com/legal/privacy-policy, docs.github.com, anthropic.com/legal/privacy.
Like any website, the service is sent your internet address when the app contacts it, and Vercel, as its host, handles that address as it does for any site it hosts. The service itself does not keep it. So that the service cannot be flooded, each report is filed with a scramble of the address that is different every day and cannot be turned back into it.
There is no account. So that the app can show you the answer under My Reports, the service gives your device a secret for each report, which stays on that device. With it the app asks how the report is doing, shows any answer, and lets you write back.
Delete This Report, in My Reports, deletes the report's picture and recording at once and closes the report, marked as deleted by you. To have the words you wrote removed from the developer's records as well, write to the address at the foot of this page. Otherwise pictures and recordings are deleted 90 days after a report is closed. Reports are never sold and never used for advertising.
Settings, saved places and notifications
Your settings, saved places and arrangements of cards are stored on your devices. Weather alert notifications are created on your device, from the alerts the app has downloaded and the limits you have set. Nothing is sold or shared for marketing.
Crash reports
Separately from the above, if you have chosen to share analytics with app developers in your device's settings, Apple may provide anonymous crash reports to the developer. They do not identify you.
Services that hold data for the developer
The services named above that receive data from or for the app (PostHog for the anonymous usage counts; Vercel, GitHub and Anthropic for problem reports) are used only to provide their service to the developer, and protect that data at least as well as this policy does. None of them is allowed to sell it or use it for advertising.
Children
Wx Advanced is a general weather app. It does not ask anyone, including children, for personal information. The only personal detail it can carry is an email address that the person sending a problem report chooses to type in, so that the developer can answer; a report carries only what its sender chooses to put in it. If you believe a child has sent a report with personal information in it, write to the address below and it will be deleted.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new effective date. Questions go to scottlanger+wx@gmail.com.