Privacy policy
Last updated 2 November 2026
This policy covers the Borealis app for iPhone and Android, Borealis controllers, and the borealmicro.com website. They’re made by Dominic Peters, trading as Boreal Micro (“I”, “me”).
In short: there are no accounts, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking. Your lights are controlled over your own network, and nothing about you or your home is sent to me.
The Borealis app
What stays on your phone
The app keeps a small amount of information on your phone so it works when you reopen it:
- the Borealis controllers it has found: their names, network addresses and device IDs;
- your colour presets;
- names you gave older controllers that can’t store a name themselves.
This is never sent anywhere, and it’s deleted when you uninstall the app.
Your local network
The app finds Borealis controllers on your Wi-Fi network (using Bonjour/mDNS) and talks to them directly. It sends them your commands (power, brightness, colour, scenes, settings, names and firmware updates) and reads back their state. This traffic stays on your network.
Bluetooth, when setting up a controller
When you set up a new controller with the app, it connects to the controller over Bluetooth and sends it the name and password of the Wi-Fi network you choose. They’re sent encrypted, directly to the controller, and the app doesn’t keep the password.
On Android 11 and older, Android requires the location permission to scan for Bluetooth devices. The app only uses it for that scan and never reads your location.
The internet: firmware updates only
To check for firmware updates, the app requests the list of Borealis releases from GitHub (api.github.com), and downloads an update from GitHub when you install one. Like any website, GitHub receives your IP address and basic request details; their use is covered by the GitHub privacy statement. The app doesn’t send GitHub anything about you or your lights.
The app makes no other internet connections.
Borealis controllers
A controller stores its Wi-Fi network, its smart home pairings, its name, your custom scenes and its settings on the controller itself. A factory reset erases them.
Controllers don’t connect to any Boreal Micro server; there isn’t one. They talk to the Borealis app, to Home Assistant if you use it, and to the smart home systems you add them to. Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa and others handle information under their own privacy policies.
The microphone only runs while a music-reactive scene is playing. Sound is turned into loudness and beat information on the controller; no audio is recorded, stored or sent anywhere.
This website
This website doesn’t use cookies or tracking. It’s hosted by Cloudflare, which processes standard request information (such as IP addresses) to deliver and protect the site.
If you sign up to hear when a product is ready, your email address is kept by the newsletter service I use, only for that purpose. Every email has an unsubscribe link, or you can ask me to remove you.
If you email me, I use your message only to reply to you.
Children
Boreal Micro’s products and website aren’t directed at children, and I don’t knowingly collect information from them.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date. Changes that affect what’s collected will be explained in the app’s release notes.
Contact
Questions about privacy: [email protected].