BeatTheHour Privacy Policy

What BeatTheHour Does

BeatTheHour is an iPhone and Apple Watch app that helps you complete short movement challenges and nudges during the hour. You configure reminder times and step goals on your iPhone. Your Apple Watch receives reminders, lets you start challenges, counts your steps, and records your results.

Data Collected and Stored

iPhone

BeatTheHour stores your app settings (active hours, reminder timing, step goal, challenge duration, and pause state) locally on your iPhone using iOS standard storage. This data never leaves your device. It is synced to your paired Apple Watch using Apple's WatchConnectivity framework so the Watch app can apply your preferences.

Apple Watch

BeatTheHour stores challenge settings received from your iPhone and your challenge history (results, step counts, timestamps) locally on your Apple Watch. Challenge results are synced to your iPhone using Apple's WatchConnectivity framework so the Today screen can display them. This data is not sent to any server and is not shared with any third party.

HealthKit

BeatTheHour uses HealthKit on both iPhone and Apple Watch.

iPhone - Daily Step Totals

BeatTheHour reads your cumulative step count from Apple Health for two purposes:

• Today's steps: Your step total for the current day is shown on the Today screen. It is read when you open the app or return to it.
• Recent days: Step totals for up to the past 7 calendar days are shown in the Recent Days screen. They are read when you open that screen.

Step totals are read on demand; BeatTheHour does not track your steps continuously in the background.

You will be asked for permission the first time BeatTheHour needs to read step totals from Apple Health. You can grant or deny this permission without affecting any other BeatTheHour feature.

Apple Watch - Challenge Step Counting

What BeatTheHour does with HealthKit on Apple Watch:

• In Classic mode: starts a short walking workout session when you tap Start, so your Apple Watch can keep tracking steps reliably while the screen is off. When the challenge ends normally, BeatTheHour saves a walking workout record and step data to Apple Health. If you cancel a challenge before it ends, no workout record is saved.
• In Gentle mode: does not start a workout session. Steps are read from the motion coprocessor at the end of the challenge window only. No workout data is written to Apple Health.
• Reads step count data for the duration of the active challenge window, typically 1-5 minutes.

What BeatTheHour does not do with HealthKit:

• Does not write health data from iPhone. The iPhone app reads step count only; it does not write workouts, steps, or any other health data to Apple Health.
• Does not monitor your movement silently or continuously throughout the day.
• Does not use HealthKit data for advertising or marketing.
• Does not sell HealthKit data.
• Does not share HealthKit data with any third party.

You can review and manage Health permissions at any time in the Apple Health app or in iOS Settings.

Motion and Fitness

BeatTheHour uses your Apple Watch's motion sensor (CMPedometer) to count steps during an active challenge. This data is used only for the duration of the challenge and is not stored beyond the challenge result and step count.

You can review and manage Motion and Fitness permissions in Settings, Privacy and Security, Motion and Fitness.

Notifications

BeatTheHour requests permission to send local notifications on Apple Watch. These notifications are:

• Hourly reminders that it is time to start a step challenge.
• A deadline alert when a challenge ends.

No notifications are sent from a server. All notifications are generated locally on your Apple Watch.

You can manage notification permissions in the Apple Watch's notification settings or in Settings, Notifications on iPhone.

Data Sharing

BeatTheHour does not share your data with any third party. There are no analytics SDKs, advertising SDKs, or crash reporting services embedded in BeatTheHour.

Data Sale

BeatTheHour does not sell your personal data or your health data.

Third-Party Services

BeatTheHour does not use any third-party services, frameworks, or SDKs beyond Apple's own system frameworks (SwiftUI, HealthKit, CoreMotion, UserNotifications, WatchConnectivity).

Data Retention and Deletion

All app data is stored locally on your devices. To delete your data:

• Settings and challenge history: Delete the BeatTheHour app from your iPhone and Apple Watch.
• Classic workout records in Apple Health: Open the Apple Health app, browse your workout history, and delete any BeatTheHour walking workout records.

Children's Privacy

BeatTheHour is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect data from children.

Changes to This Policy

If this policy changes materially, the updated policy will be posted on the BeatTheHour privacy policy page before the change takes effect.

Contact

Questions about this privacy policy:

Email: [email protected]
Website: igney.com