Privacy Policy

Effective date: May 4, 2026

PlantaeLight LLC ("we", "us", or "our") operates the PlantaeLight mobile application, the companion web dashboard at app.plantaelight.com, and our PlantaeLight hardware devices (collectively, the "App"). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and protect your information when you use the App.

1. Information We Collect

Account & device data

Data Type	Purpose	Stored Where
Email address	Account creation and authentication	AWS Cognito (EU)
Password (hashed)	Account authentication; never stored in plaintext	AWS Cognito (EU)
Apple / Google sign-in identifier	Authentication when you use Sign in with Apple or Google	AWS Cognito (EU)
Mobile phone number (if you opt in)	Sending SMS verification codes, account-recovery codes, two-factor authentication codes, order / shipping status updates, and — separately opt-in — account-activity notifications such as new recipes or grow notes from accounts you follow	AWS Cognito (EU) + SMS gateway provider
Shipping address (if you order hardware)	Fulfilling and tracking your hardware order	AWS DynamoDB (EU) + carrier (e.g. UPS, DHL, USPS)
Device identifiers	Linking your PlantaeLight hardware to your account	AWS DynamoDB (EU)
Device error logs & diagnostics	Troubleshooting and support; visible to you in Device Diagnostics	AWS DynamoDB (EU)
Push notification tokens	Sending device status, social, and support alerts	AWS DynamoDB (EU)
Purchase history	Managing your Pro subscription and unlocked recipes	Apple / Google / Stripe + AWS DynamoDB (EU)
Light recipes & schedules	Storing your custom growing configurations	AWS DynamoDB (EU)
Activity logs	Showing you a history of device events	AWS DynamoDB (EU)
Support tickets	Replying to your help requests	AWS DynamoDB (EU)

Community & social data

If you use the social features of the App (Feed, Explore, Profile), we additionally collect and process:

Data Type	Purpose	Visibility
Username (handle)	Identifies you publicly on the community side	Public
Display name, bio, avatar image	Profile presentation	Public if your profile is public; otherwise visible only to approved followers
City, region, country (if you opt in)	Map presence in Explore and "near you" discovery	Public if you enable "Show me on the map"
Approximate geohash (~5 km cell)	Map clustering. Exact coordinates are never stored on our servers.	Public if you enable "Show me on the map"
Follows / followers	Building your social graph and Feed	Public unless your profile is private
Star ratings (1–5)	Aggregated into recipe rating averages	Public per-user; aggregated across users
Reviews (up to 500 characters)	Public commentary on recipes	Public
Bookmarks ("Saved")	Lets you save recipes for later	Visible only to you
"I grew this" markers	Public proof-of-use signal on recipes	Public
Forks	Tracking recipe ancestry (lineage)	Public
Published recipes	Recipes you set to "Public"	Public; private recipes are visible only to you
Collections	Curated lists of recipes	Public if you mark them public; otherwise visible only to you
Activity timeline	Surfaces your public actions (publish, rate, fork, follow, badge) in followers' Feed	You can hide individual activity types in Privacy settings
Block list	Hides blocked users' content from you and yours from them	Visible only to you
Reports	Submitted abuse / safety reports against profiles, recipes, or reviews	Visible to PlantaeLight staff for review; not shown to the reported user
Verification application	Reason text and identity-proof links you submit when applying for the verified-creator badge	Visible to PlantaeLight staff for review
Privacy settings	Your "public profile", "searchable", "show me on the map" toggles, and hidden activity types	Applied automatically; not displayed publicly

2. Information We Access Temporarily

Bluetooth: Used during device setup to discover nearby PlantaeLight devices. Not stored.
Location (system permission): Required by the operating system for Bluetooth scanning, and used (only if you tap "Use current location") to look up the city you're in for the map opt-in. Exact coordinates never leave your device — they are converted client-side to a city/country and a coarse ~5 km geohash before being saved.
Local network: Used to communicate with your PlantaeLight devices on your home WiFi. Not sent to our servers.
WiFi credentials: Your WiFi network name and password are sent directly to your PlantaeLight device during setup. They are never transmitted to or stored on our servers.
Face ID / Touch ID / Android biometrics: Used for convenient sign-in. Biometric data is processed entirely on your device by the operating system. We never receive or store biometric data.

3. How We Use Your Information

To create, authenticate, and manage your account.
To connect and control your PlantaeLight devices.
To send push notifications about device status (online/offline, firmware updates), support replies, and — if you use the social features — new followers and activity on recipes you published.
To manage your Pro subscription and any individual recipe purchases.
To store your custom light recipes, schedules, and (if applicable) collections.
To run the community side of the App: showing your public profile, computing recipe rating averages, building your Feed, surfacing trending content in Explore, and clustering opt-in users on the map.
To enforce our Terms of Service and respond to abuse reports.
To diagnose hardware and software issues you report through Device Diagnostics or support tickets.

4. SMS / Text Messaging

If you provide your mobile phone number and opt in, PlantaeLight may send you SMS text messages for the following transactional purposes only:

Account security: one-time verification codes, account-recovery codes, two-factor authentication (2FA) codes, and alerts about suspicious sign-in activity.
Order & shipping updates: confirmation when you place a hardware order, dispatch notifications, tracking links, delivery updates, and delivery exceptions.
Critical device or service notices: safety recalls, urgent firmware notices, or scheduled service interruptions affecting your devices.
Account activity: updates about activity related to your account that you have separately opted in to receive — for example, when an account you follow publishes a new light recipe or grow note, when one of your own published recipes is forked or marked "I grew this", or when someone new follows you. You enable these messages per category in Profile → ⚙️ → Notifications → SMS; they are off by default and are never used to advertise PlantaeLight products or third-party offers.

How you opt in. We will only text you after you have actively provided your phone number — for example, by entering it during account setup, enabling SMS-based 2FA in Profile → ⚙️ → Account → Security, providing it at checkout when ordering hardware, or turning on activity SMS in Profile → ⚙️ → Notifications → SMS. Each opt-in is specific to its purpose; enabling SMS 2FA does not enable shipping or activity texts, and vice versa.

Message frequency. Frequency varies based on your activity. Account-security texts are sent on demand (typically only when you sign in from a new device or recover your account). Shipping texts are sent up to a handful of times per order. Account-activity texts depend on the accounts you follow and on engagement with your published content; we rate-limit them to a small number per day per category, and you can adjust each category individually. We do not send recurring marketing or promotional texts.

Message and data rates. Standard message and data rates from your mobile carrier may apply. PlantaeLight does not charge you for SMS messages, but your carrier may.

How to stop. You can opt out at any time by replying STOP to any PlantaeLight SMS message. You will receive a single confirmation text and will not be sent further messages of that category. To resume, reply START or re-enable the relevant feature in the App. Reply HELP for help, or contact support@plantaelight.com.

Carriers. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. SMS is supported on all major U.S. mobile carriers; international support depends on your carrier and country.

No sharing of mobile information for marketing. We will not share, sell, rent, or otherwise disclose your mobile phone number, SMS opt-in status, or SMS consent records to any third party or affiliate for their marketing or promotional purposes. The only third parties that receive your phone number are our SMS gateway subprocessor (which delivers the text on our behalf) and, for shipping texts, the shipping carrier whose tracking-update SMS you receive. Information sharing to subcontractors performing support services on our behalf, such as the SMS gateway and customer support, is permitted under this Policy.

5. Data Sharing

We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information. We use the following service providers ("subprocessors") to operate the App:

Amazon Web Services (AWS): Cloud infrastructure, authentication (Cognito), data storage (DynamoDB, S3), IoT device communication (IoT Core), serverless compute (Lambda), and CDN (CloudFront). All data is processed in the EU (eu-central-1, Frankfurt).
Apple, Google, and Stripe: In-app purchase, subscription, and payment processing. Push notification delivery via Apple Push Notification service and Firebase Cloud Messaging.
SMS gateway provider: Delivery of transactional SMS messages described in Section 4 (verification codes, account-recovery codes, 2FA codes, and shipping updates). The provider receives your mobile phone number and message content solely to transmit the message; it does not use your number for marketing.
Shipping carriers (e.g. UPS, DHL, USPS): Fulfilment and delivery of hardware orders. Carriers receive your name, shipping address, and (if you opted in) phone number in order to deliver the package and send tracking updates.
OpenStreetMap (Nominatim): When you type a city name into the location search, your query string is sent to the public Nominatim service so we can suggest matching cities. Your account identity is not sent.
Map tile provider (OpenStreetMap): The Explore map view loads map tiles from OpenStreetMap. Tile requests carry your IP address to OpenStreetMap as is standard for any web map.

Public-by-design data. Any content you publish (public recipes, ratings, reviews, "I grew this" markers, forks, public collections, public profile fields, opt-in map presence) is visible to anyone using the App or our public web pages. You can change visibility at any time, but copies that were already viewed, cached, or referenced (for example a fork of your recipe) cannot be retroactively recalled.

Legal disclosures. We may disclose information if required by law, court order, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of PlantaeLight, our users, or the public.

6. Data Retention

Account data is retained while your account is active.
Account deletion. When you delete your account from Profile → ⚙️ → Account → Delete account, we delete or anonymize your personal data, devices, recipes, ratings, reviews, bookmarks, follows, and activity logs within 30 days. Public side-effects (e.g. another user's fork of a recipe you published) are retained but are no longer attributed to you.
Reports. Submitted reports and our handling decisions are retained for up to 24 months for safety and audit purposes, even if you delete your account.
Block list. Retained while your account is active; deleted with your account.
Device error logs. Retained in the cloud for 90 days after the device pushes them.
SMS opt-in records. Your phone number, the date and channel of opt-in (e.g. account setup, 2FA enrolment, hardware checkout), and the date of any opt-out are retained for as long as your account is active and for up to 4 years after opt-out for compliance and audit purposes.
Backups. Encrypted backups may retain data for up to 35 days beyond deletion before being overwritten.

7. Data Security

All communication between the App and our servers is encrypted using TLS. Authentication is handled by AWS Cognito with industry-standard security practices. Device communication uses AWS IoT Core with mutual TLS certificate authentication. Sensitive credentials (passwords, API keys) are never logged.

8. Your Rights

You have the right to:

Access your personal data — visible in the App, with a complete machine-readable export available at Profile → ⚙️ → Account → Export my data.
Correct your data — editable in the App's Profile editor and Privacy settings.
Delete your account and all associated personal data — Profile → ⚙️ → Account → Delete account.
Restrict or object to processing — adjust your visibility, searchability, map opt-in, and per-activity-type publication in Privacy settings.
Block and report other users — available from any user's profile.
Lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. EU residents may contact their national authority; a list is published by the European Data Protection Board.

To exercise any right that isn't directly available in the App, contact privacy@plantaelight.com.

9. Children's Privacy

The App is not intended for children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you become aware that a child has provided us with personal information, contact us so we can delete it.

10. International Transfers

Your data is primarily stored in the European Union (Frankfurt). Some subprocessors (Apple, Google, Stripe) may process limited data outside the EU; in such cases we rely on standard contractual clauses or equivalent safeguards.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes through the App or by email at least 30 days before they take effect.

12. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, contact us at:

PlantaeLight LLC
509 East Maple Street
Nashville, Tennessee, 37115
United States of America
Phone: +1 (615) 510-0011
Email: privacy@plantaelight.com