Privacy policy

1. Who we are

CellBoss is made by Kindly Made, a small independent app maker in South Africa. In this policy, “we” and “us” mean Kindly Made. For the purposes of South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) and the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Kindly Made is responsible for any personal information described here. You can reach us at support@kindlymadeapps.com.

2. Your battery’s board and Bluetooth

CellBoss connects over Bluetooth to the battery management board (BMS) in your battery and asks it for its readings: the charge, the voltage, the current, every cell’s voltage, the temperatures, the board’s switches and alarms, and facts about the board such as its model. The readings are worked out on your phone. CellBoss only ever sends the board requests for its readings: it has no way to change the board’s settings, switches or calibration.

You pair a board with Android’s own pairing list (companion device pairing). Android finds the boards nearby for you, so CellBoss needs no permission to scan for Bluetooth devices or to know your location. CellBoss remembers the board you paired by its Bluetooth address, on your phone, so it can connect again.

3. What CellBoss keeps on your phone

CellBoss keeps these on your phone, in its own private storage:

• Your batteries: the names you give them, the board type, the battery’s chemistry, cell count and capacity if you set them, the board’s Bluetooth address, and whether a battery is in your battery bank.
• History: the readings of each battery while CellBoss reads it: every few seconds for two days, then one a minute for 30 days, then one every 15 minutes, until you forget the battery.
• The last reading of each battery, for the widget and the battery report.
• Alerts: your alert rules and a log of past alerts.
• Your settings: your temperature unit, which battery you were looking at, whether Watch mode is on, and whether you have seen the first page.

None of this is sent to us. We cannot see it, and nor can anyone else unless you share it.

4. Watch mode, alerts and the widget

With Watch mode on, CellBoss keeps reading your battery in the background while your phone is near it, and shows the charge in a notification that stays while it reads. Alerts are notifications too, made on your phone from your battery’s readings and your alert rules. The home-screen widget shows the last reading kept on your phone. None of these sends anything off your phone.

5. Android’s own backup

If you have turned on Android’s backup, Android may include your batteries (their names, board types and Bluetooth addresses), your alert rules and your settings in the backup it keeps in your Google account, so they come back if you change phones. This is Google’s backup service, under your Google account’s settings and Google’s privacy policy: we cannot see it. The history of readings is not in this backup; it moves only when you copy your phone straight to a new one. You can turn backup off in your phone’s settings.

6. The permissions CellBoss uses

• Nearby devices (Bluetooth connect), to connect to the boards you paired. On Android 11 and older, the older Bluetooth permissions do the same.
• Notifications, for Watch mode’s notification and your alerts. CellBoss asks the first time you turn Watch mode on or allow alerts.
• Foreground service for a connected device, keeping the phone awake, and starting after a restart, so Watch mode can keep reading in the background with the screen off and come back on after your phone restarts.
• Google Play billing (com.android.vending.BILLING), so you can subscribe to CellBoss Pro through Google Play (section 9).
• One technical permission that every modern app has, which only lets CellBoss’s own parts talk to each other inside the app (app.kindlymade.cellboss.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION).

CellBoss does not have, and does not ask for, permission to use the internet, your location, Bluetooth scanning, the camera, the microphone, your contacts, photos or files, or phone calls.

7. Things you choose to share

CellBoss only shares something when you ask it to, through Android’s share menu, with the app you choose:

• A battery report: a PDF with the battery’s name, its board type and chemistry, its last reading, every cell’s voltage and charts of its last 30 days.
• Your readings: a spreadsheet (CSV) of the readings kept for a day, a week or a month.
• A data sample: if a board reads oddly, a text file with the board’s last raw messages, what CellBoss made of them, the board’s model and software version, and your phone’s model and Android version, addressed to our support email so we can add the board. It leaves out the board’s serial number and Bluetooth address.

The demo battery’s reports and readings are marked as a demo. Once you share something, it is handled by the app and the service you chose, under their terms. We only receive what you send to us yourself.

8. Google Play

You download CellBoss from Google Play, which Google runs under its own terms and privacy policy. Google gives us statistics about CellBoss, such as the number of installs, ratings and reviews, and the countries, Android versions and phone models it is used on. These come to us as totals. Google also shows us reports when CellBoss crashes or freezes, from people who have chosen to share usage and diagnostics data with Google. Those reports describe the phone model, the Android version and what the app was doing, not who you are. We use them only to fix problems.

If you test CellBoss before it is released, Google Play also shows us the email address of your Google account, because testing is by invitation. We use it only to run the test.

If you write a review on Google Play, it is public, along with the name on your Google account. We may reply to it there. CellBoss itself never asks you for a rating.

9. CellBoss Pro and payments

CellBoss Pro is an optional subscription, bought through Google Play. Google Play takes the payment and handles your card or other payment method: we never see your card or bank details. CellBoss only asks Google Play, on your phone, whether your Google account holds a CellBoss Pro subscription, and keeps only the answer on your phone, so Pro works when you are offline. Google tells us about subscriptions as totals, and as the orders Google Play processes for us, which do not include your card details. You can cancel at any time in Google Play.

10. What we never do

• We do not show ads, and CellBoss contains no advertising code.
• We do not use analytics, tracking or crash-reporting tools inside CellBoss.
• We do not ask you to create an account or sign in.
• We do not upload your batteries’ readings or history, look at them or use them to train anything.
• We do not sell, rent or share your information with anyone.
• We do not use your information to build a profile of you or to make automated decisions about you.
• CellBoss never changes your battery board’s settings, switches or calibration.

11. When you email us

If you write to us, we receive your email address and whatever you choose to tell us or attach, such as a data sample or a battery report. We use it only to answer you and to improve CellBoss, for example to add a board that it does not read yet. We keep emails only as long as we need them to help you, and usually no longer than two years after we last hear from you. You can ask us to delete them sooner. Mail to support@kindlymadeapps.com is passed on by Cloudflare’s email routing to a Google (Gmail) mailbox, where it is stored, and may be kept on servers outside South Africa or the European Union, under the protections those companies offer.

Under GDPR, our reason for using this information is our legitimate interest in answering your questions and looking after CellBoss.

12. This website

This website has no ads, no analytics and no tracking, and it uses no cookies of its own. Its fonts and pictures come from the site itself, not from other companies. The site is hosted by Cloudflare, which handles technical information such as your IP address and browser type to deliver the pages and protect the site from attacks. See Cloudflare’s privacy policy.

13. Children

CellBoss is made for adults who look after lithium batteries, and its audience on Google Play is people aged 18 and over. It is not directed at children. CellBoss does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, children included: everything stays on the phone.

14. Your rights (POPIA and GDPR)

Wherever you live, you can ask us:

• whether we hold any personal information about you, and for a copy of it;
• to correct it, or to delete it;
• to stop using it, or to limit how we use it;
• to object to how we use it.

In practice, the only personal information we could hold is emails you have sent us and, if you test CellBoss before release, the email address Google Play shows us for the test (section 8). Your batteries and their readings are on your phone, so you are in control of them (section 15), and we cannot see, copy or delete them for you.

To use any of these rights, email support@kindlymadeapps.com. We will reply within 30 days. If you are not happy with our answer, you can complain to South Africa’s Information Regulator (inforegulator.org.za) or, in the European Union or the United Kingdom, to your local data protection authority.

15. Deleting your data

• A battery: Settings › Forget a battery. CellBoss forgets its name, settings and alert rules, and deletes its history, its last reading and its alerts. The battery and its board are not changed.
• Everything CellBoss kept: uninstall CellBoss, or use Settings › Apps › CellBoss › Storage › Clear storage on your phone.
• Android’s backup: delete CellBoss’s backup from your Google account’s backups, in your phone’s settings or Google Drive.
• Things you shared: delete them where you sent them, such as your email or chats.

16. Changes to this policy

If we change what CellBoss does with information, we will update this page and the dates at the top before the change reaches the app. If a change means CellBoss would send anything from your phone, CellBoss will ask you first.

17. Contact us

Kindly Made, South Africa
support@kindlymadeapps.com