Privacy policy

Glowside is made by WILLTECH LTDA (CNPJ 47.708.632/0001-78), a company registered in Brazil ("WILLTECH", "we"). For any privacy question or request, write to privacy@glowside.app.

• There is no account or sign-in.
• There are no analytics, ads, tracking or crash-reporting tools, and no third-party code inside the app.
• Your lights are controlled on your local network, directly through your Hue Bridge.
• Screen sync reads your screen at very low resolution, in memory only. Images and sound never leave your Mac.
• The only internet service the app contacts is Signify's Hue Bridge discovery service, described below.
• The app sends no data to us, WILLTECH.

When you pair Glowside with a Hue Bridge, the app saves the Bridge's local address and identifier, the access keys the Bridge issues to the app, and a fingerprint of the Bridge's security certificate. They live in an unencrypted file in your user Library folder (~/Library/Application Support/Lume/bridge.json), with permissions limited to your macOS user account.

Your preferences are kept by the standard macOS preferences system: main room, favorite and recent scenes, Motion, routines, keyboard shortcuts, screen sync settings, and window options and positions. The names and states of your lights, rooms and scenes are read from the Bridge each time and kept in memory only.

macOS may also keep its own caches for the app, such as discovery responses (your Bridge's identifier and local address) and compiled graphics, and your backups (for example, Time Machine) may include the files above.

Glowside talks to your Bridge over your local network using encrypted HTTPS, and during screen sync it streams colors to the Bridge over encrypted DTLS. The Bridge reports everything it manages; the app keeps only your lights, rooms, zones, scenes and devices, in memory, and ignores the rest, such as sensors. It sends the Bridge the commands you give it. Scenes you save in Glowside are stored on your Bridge, so they also appear in the Hue app.

The Bridge is your device. What it stores, and what the Hue app does, is governed by Signify's own policies.

To find your Bridge during setup, and to look for it again when the app can't connect to it, Glowside asks Signify's public discovery service (discovery.meethue.com) which Bridges are registered from your network. The app adds no personal data to this request, but like any internet request it reveals your public IP address, and macOS includes standard headers such as your preferred languages. Signify replies with the identifier and local address of the Bridges it knows for that IP.

While Glowside can't connect to your Bridge, for example when your Mac is away from home, it repeats the lookup a few times in the first minute and then about every 30 to 45 seconds, until it reconnects or you quit the app. If setup doesn't find your Bridge, you can type its IP address instead. Signify handles these requests under its own privacy policy.

Screen sync is optional and needs the Screen Recording permission from macOS. While it runs, in every mode, macOS gives the app a copy of your screen scaled down to 64 pixels wide, without the cursor and without Glowside's own windows. The app turns each frame into colors for your lights, in memory (Music mode ignores the frames), and sends only colors to your Bridge. Frames are never saved or sent anywhere. When it lists your screens, macOS also returns your open windows and apps; Glowside uses that list only to leave itself out of the capture.

In Music mode, or with "Pulse with audio" on, the app also reads your Mac's system audio to follow the beat. It never uses the microphone. The sound is analyzed in memory and immediately discarded.

• Local Network (macOS 15 and later): to talk to your Hue Bridge.
• Screen Recording: only for screen sync, including its sound, requested only when you start screen sync or press "Request permission".
• Login item: only if you turn on "Open Glowside at login".

Glowside offers actions to Shortcuts and Siri, and macOS receives the names of your scenes to suggest them. If you agree in your Mac's settings to share analytics with app developers, Apple may send us crash reports and usage statistics under Apple's privacy policy. Purchases and downloads are handled by Apple through the App Store.

Settings › Bridge › "Forget this Bridge…" deletes the pairing file but keeps your preferences. To remove Glowside's other files, quit it, delete the app and the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Lume, and remove its preferences and the macOS caches mentioned above. The access key the Bridge issued to Glowside stays registered on the Bridge, and scenes you saved stay there until you delete them.

glowside.app has no cookies, analytics or trackers, and it loads nothing from third parties. If you pick a theme (light, dark or automatic) in the appearance menu, that choice is saved only in your browser's local storage and never leaves your device. Our hosting provider, Vercel Inc., processes technical data such as your IP address and the pages you request to deliver the site and protect it against abuse. If you email us, we use your message only to reply and keep it only as long as needed.

Almost everything Glowside does happens on your Mac and never reaches us. For data we do receive, such as your emails, we rely on our legitimate interest in providing support and on Brazil's General Data Protection Law (LGPD) and, where it applies, the EU GDPR. You can ask us to access, correct, delete or port your data, or object to its use, and you can file a complaint with Brazil's National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) or your local EU authority. Write to privacy@glowside.app.

Glowside is a general-audience app. It sends us no personal data about anyone, children included.

If the way the app handles data changes, we will update this page and the date at the top.