Privacy Policy for Sleeping Timer
Application ID: com.serhiidev.sleepingtimer
Effective date: 24 July 2026
Last updated: 15 November 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how the Sleeping Timer mobile application (the "App", "we", "us") handles information. We do not run servers, have no user accounts, and never receive your personal data ourselves. The App does show ads and can accept optional tips, and those two features involve Google as a third party — this policy explains exactly how.
1. Information We Collect
We do not operate any servers and do not collect, store, or receive any personal or sensitive user data about you. The App has no user accounts. It does report crashes and anonymous usage counts through Google Firebase, described in section 5.
The App connects to the internet to load ads, to complete a tip through Google Play if you choose to leave one, to report crashes and anonymous usage counts, to fetch its remote configuration, and to reach Google Play's rating and update services. Each is described below.
2. Data Stored on Your Device
The App saves your preferences on your device, so it can remember your settings between sessions. This list is not accessible to any third party, and we do not receive it - with one exception, described in section 5: which of the end-of-timer actions you have switched on is also reported to Google Firebase as anonymous usage data. It includes:
- your last-used timer duration and extra-time amount;
- your feature toggles (stop media, lock screen, turn off Wi-Fi/Bluetooth);
- your selected in-app language;
- your night-sky progress: the number of points you have earned by watching optional ads or leaving optional tips, which drives the night-sky progression on the Night sky screen;
- daily ad counters: how many rewarded ads were shown today, when the last one closed, and how many times the banner was tapped today, used only to limit how many ads one device sees;
- how many timers have run to their end and when you first opened the App, and whether a Google Play rating request or update offer has already been shown, so neither is repeated;
- for tips, the Google Play purchase identifiers of tips already credited, so a tip is never credited twice.
This information is removed when you clear the App's data or uninstall the App. It contains no payment details of any kind.
Android backup. The App participates in Android's standard backup and restore, so these preferences - including your night-sky progress - follow you to a new device instead of being lost. The backup is made by the Android operating system to your own Google account, is covered by Google's Privacy Policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy), and is end-to-end encrypted with your device credentials on Android 9 and later. We have no access to it and cannot read it. You can turn this off for the App, or for your device entirely, in your Android system settings under Backup.
3. Advertising
The App displays ads through Google AdMob (the Google Mobile Ads SDK). Ads are limited to a small banner on the timer screen and an optional rewarded ad that only ever plays after you tap "Watch an ad" yourself.
To keep ad traffic genuine, the App limits how many ads one device sees each day and shows ads only when it was installed from Google Play. Both checks run on your device, and nothing about them is sent to us. Ads can also be switched off remotely through Firebase Remote Config (section 5).
To serve ads, Google may collect and process information such as your device's advertising identifier, IP address, device and operating-system information, and general ad-interaction data. This processing is carried out by Google as an independent party, not by us — we receive only aggregate, anonymous earnings reports and never see information about individual users.
Google's handling of this data is described in Google's Privacy Policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy) and the Google Advertising Technologies notice (https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads).
Consent: in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, the App shows a Google-certified consent message (the Google User Messaging Platform) before requesting personalized ads, and you can reopen it at any time from the menu under "Ad preferences" to review or withdraw your choices. You may also reset or delete your advertising identifier in your Android system settings at any time.
4. Tips, Ratings and Updates (Google Play)
The Night sky screen offers optional one-time tips. They are entirely voluntary: the App is fully functional without them, no feature is locked behind them, and they do not remove ads. A tip simply adds stars to the night-sky progression on the Night sky screen, the same progression that watching an ad advances.
All tips are processed by Google Play's billing system. We never see or handle your payment details — no card numbers, no billing address, nothing. We receive only Google's aggregate payout reports. Google's handling of your purchase is governed by Google's Privacy Policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy) and the Google Play Terms of Service. Refund requests are handled by Google Play.
The App stores locally only the identifiers of tips already credited to your sky, as described in section 2.
Ratings and updates. The App may ask Google Play once to show its in-app rating dialog, and may offer a new version through Google Play's optional in-app update dialog. Both dialogs are shown and handled by Google Play. Any rating or review you leave goes to Google Play, and the App is not told whether a dialog appeared or what you chose.
5. Crash Reports and Usage Statistics
To find and fix problems, to understand which parts of the App are used, and to be able to switch ads off quickly, the App uses Google Firebase for three things:
- Crash reports (Firebase Crashlytics). When the App crashes, it sends the technical details of the failure: the stack trace, the state of the App at that moment, your device model and Android version, and an installation identifier generated by Crashlytics. This lets a crash be located and fixed. It contains nothing you typed. It can include a timer duration where the fault itself involves one - for example a duration that arrived out of range - but never a history of your timers.
- Usage counts (Google Analytics for Firebase). The App counts anonymous events such as a timer being started, stopped or finished, the Night sky screen being opened, an ad being watched, a daily ad limit being reached, a tip being chosen, a rating request, and an update being offered. Timer durations are recorded only as coarse ranges (for example "21-30 minutes"), never exact values. Google Analytics also collects your device's advertising identifier, general device and operating-system information, and an approximate location derived from your IP address. Purchases made through Google Play are recorded automatically by Google Analytics.
- Configuration (Firebase Remote Config). At launch the App downloads a small set of switches; today these only say whether each kind of ad is enabled. The request carries a Firebase installation identifier and basic app and device information. Nothing about you is sent beyond that.
We use this only in aggregate, to decide what to fix and what to build next. There are no user accounts, so none of it is tied to a name, an email address or any account of ours.
Consent: in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, the usage counts above follow the same choice you make in the consent message described in section 3. Crash reports are not covered by that choice - they are sent whenever the App fails, so the failure can be found and fixed. If you do not consent to personalized ads, the App instructs Google not to store or use this data for those purposes. You can change your choice at any time from the menu under "Ad preferences", and you can reset or delete your advertising identifier in your Android system settings.
Google's handling of this data is described in Google's Privacy Policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy) and the Firebase Privacy and Security documentation (https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy).
6. Permissions the App Uses
The App requests only the permissions needed for its timer features and, for ads and tips, network access. None are used by us to collect or transmit your personal data:
- Notifications — to show the running timer and its controls (add time / stop).
- Foreground service — to keep the countdown running reliably while the App is in the background.
- Internet / network state — to load ads, to complete a tip through Google Play, and to reach Google Firebase and Google Play's rating and update services.
- Billing — to offer optional tips through Google Play.
- Device administrator (lock screen) — used only to lock the screen when the timer ends, and only if you enable that option. The App uses no other device-administrator capability and reads or transmits no data through it.
- Bluetooth / Wi-Fi controls — on supported (older) Android versions, and only if you enable the option, to turn these radios off when the timer ends. No connectivity or device information is collected.
- Modify audio settings — to pause media playback when the timer ends, if you enable that option.
- Exact alarms — to end the countdown precisely at the time you chose, even while the device is idle. No data is involved.
In addition, the Google advertising and analytics libraries add permissions of their own when the App is built. These include the advertising ID permission, the Android Privacy Sandbox attribution permissions, network state, wake lock, a basic phone-state permission and access to Google Play's install-referrer service. They are requested by those libraries for the advertising and reporting purposes described in sections 3 and 5, and by us for nothing else.
7. Data Sharing and Third Parties
We do not sell or share any data ourselves. The App integrates Google services that act as independent parties: Google AdMob for advertising (section 3), Google Play for tips, in-app ratings and in-app updates (section 4), and Google Firebase for crash reports, usage counts and remote configuration (section 5). The App contains no other advertising SDKs, and no analytics beyond the Google Firebase services described in section 5.
8. Children's Privacy
The App is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect any personal information from anyone, including children under the age of 13. Because the App shows advertising served by Google, we recommend that a parent or guardian supervise use by children and review Google's advertising notice linked in section 3.
9. Data Security
All App preferences are stored in the App's private, OS-sandboxed storage on your device, readable by no other app. The one copy that leaves the device is the Android system backup described in section 2, which goes to your own Google account under Google's encryption. We transmit no personal data ourselves; the network connections the App makes are those made by Google's advertising, Play and Firebase SDKs, which use encrypted transport.
10. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time — for example, if new features are added. If we make material changes, we will update this page and revise the "Last updated" date above before the change takes effect.
11. Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, contact us at: serhii.kost.dev@gmail.com
12. Star Map Data and Credits
The night sky in the App draws constellation figures adapted from the "modern_iau" sky culture of Stellarium (https://stellarium.org), which is based on the IAU constellation charts made with Sky & Telescope magazine (Roger Sinnott, Rick Fienberg, Alan MacRobert). They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). We re-projected the figures and changed the order of their lines; the adapted figure data is available under the same licence.
Star positions come from the ESA Hipparcos Catalogue (ESA, 1997), retrieved through VizieR (CDS, Strasbourg).