Effective Date: 2026-09-27
Developer: Ken Barber, trading as Umberum, Sydney, NSW, Australia
The short version
Sherlock is software you run yourself. The daemon runs on a computer in your house and looks at your own network. The phone app talks to that daemon and nothing else. Neither of them sends anything to us, to Google, or to anyone.
We collect nothing. There are no accounts, no analytics, no advertising, no crash reporting, and no servers of ours in the loop.
What the app stores on your phone
Two things, in the app’s own private storage on the device:
- The address of your daemon, so it can find it again.
- The bearer token your daemon issued, so it is let in.
Both stay on the phone. The app never copies them anywhere. Uninstalling the app removes them.
What the app sends, and to whom
The app sends requests only to the daemon address you gave it, on your own network. Those requests carry the token and the commands you make in the app, such as switching a light. When you ask the app to find a daemon, it listens for the daemon’s announcement on your local network and sends nothing off it.
The app makes no other network connections. It does not contact Umberum, Google Play services beyond what the operating system itself does to install and update apps, or any third party.
What the daemon holds
The daemon keeps what it has learnt about your house, such as which lights, speakers and devices exist and what state they are in, in a database on the computer where it runs. Credentials it needs for your devices, such as a Hue bridge key, live in its configuration file on that computer. None of this leaves your network unless you send it somewhere yourself.
Permissions the app asks for
- Internet and network state: to reach your daemon on your Wi-Fi.
- Wi-Fi multicast: to hear the daemon announce itself, so you do not have to type its address.
Nothing else. No location, camera, contacts, storage or microphone.
Children
Sherlock is not directed at children and collects no data from anyone.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be published at this address with a new effective date.
Contact
Questions about this policy: ken@umberum.au.
Your rights
Under the Australian Privacy Act 1988 you may ask what personal information we hold about you and ask for it to be corrected or deleted. As Sherlock sends us nothing, the honest answer is that we hold none, but the address above is open to the question.