Privacy policy

Sumeru is a free Android app for naam jap and naam lekhan, made by Nothing Labs in India (“we”, “us”). This policy covers the Sumeru app (app ID com.sumeru.labs) and this website.

Sumeru has no accounts. We never ask for your name, phone number or email address, and the app works without the internet.

Everything you put into Sumeru is saved only on your phone:

• your language, your city and the practices you chose;
• your mantra and the name you write, including any you type or speak yourself;
• your daily counts and goals, totals, streaks, milestones, pothi pages and sankalps;
• your settings, such as reminders, sounds, vibration and how you like to count.

This information is stored in an encrypted form (AES-256). The key that unlocks it is kept in your phone’s secure key store, so other apps cannot read it.

Sumeru turns off Android’s automatic cloud backup and device-to-device transfer for its data. That means none of it is copied to Google Drive or anywhere else. It also means there is no backup: if you uninstall the app or change phones, your counts are gone.

There is one thing Sumeru sends from your phone: a small summary of each day, which helps us understand how the app is used and make it better, for example whether people keep coming back and which parts they find useful.

When it is sent. When you open Sumeru and the phone has internet, the app sends the summaries for days that have already ended. If there is no internet, they wait on the phone for at most 60 days (older ones are dropped), and each is deleted from the phone as soon as it has been received.

What it contains. Each daily summary holds only these items:

What it never contains: your name or phone number, your city or location, your mantra or the name you write, your contacts, photos, or anything else on your phone.

The device code. So that one phone is not counted twice, each summary carries a code made by putting your phone’s Android ID through a one-way scramble (a hash). The code does not contain your Android ID and does not tell us who you are, but it stays the same for the same phone, even if you reinstall Sumeru or erase your counts. It changes if the phone is factory reset.

The summaries go to our server at stats.nothinglabs.in (run on Cloudflare), which passes only the items above to PostHog, the service we use to count them, on its servers in the EU. Like any connection on the internet, our server also receives your phone’s IP address and basic technical details of the request; it does not store them or pass them on, and we do not use them to work out who or where you are.

There is no switch for the daily summary inside Sumeru yet. If you would rather it was not sent, you can block Sumeru’s internet access in your phone’s settings where your phone allows it (the app keeps working normally), or write to us.

Sumeru asks Android for only these:

Sumeru does not ask for your location, microphone, camera, contacts, photos or files, or phone calls.

To work properly, the app also reads a few technical facts on the phone, for example your time zone (to ring the reminder at the right hour), your phone’s maker (to show tips for phones that block reminders), whether the screen was switched off (to reopen jap in eyes-closed mode) and, on the jap screen only if you choose it, the volume keys (to count). These stay on the phone.

Sumeru never uses GPS or asks for your location. You pick your city from a list built into the app (city information © GeoNames). It is used only on your phone, to show the tithi, sunrise and sunset and to set reminder times, and it is never sent.

The panchang itself is built into the app, so it works without internet.

If you choose to speak a mantra instead of typing it, Sumeru opens your phone’s own speech-recognition service (usually provided by Google). Sumeru never records or saves your voice; it only receives the text of the words recognised. The speech service may need the internet, and its own privacy policy applies to it. If you would rather not use it, you can simply type your mantra.

Reminders are set on your phone, with no server involved. The reminder text may include your mantra or the name you write, so it may be visible on your lock screen. You can change the time or turn reminders off at any time in Sumeru’s settings or your phone’s notification settings.

• Sharing. When you tap share (for your day’s jap, lekhan, a milestone, or to invite friends), Sumeru opens your phone’s share menu with a picture card and a short line of text (they may include your mantra or name and your count). The picture is made on your phone and deleted after sharing. Nothing is shared unless you choose an app, such as WhatsApp, and send it; that app’s own policy then applies.
• Feedback. “Send your feedback” opens your own email app. If you send it, we receive your email address and your message, and use them only to reply and to improve Sumeru.
• Help videos. The short help videos play inside Sumeru in YouTube’s embedded player, from its privacy-enhanced address (youtube-nocookie.com), and need the internet. When you open a video, and only then, YouTube receives what any viewer’s phone sends, such as your IP address and device details, and YouTube’s own privacy policy applies. Sumeru tells YouTube nothing about you or your practice, and nothing is downloaded or saved on your phone.

• We do not show ads, and there are no advertising tools in the app.
• We do not sell your information or share it with anyone for advertising.
• We do not use tracking or crash-reporting tools in the app, and no analytics code from anyone else runs inside it. The daily summary above is the only thing counted.
• We do not ask you to sign up, log in or pay.

In Sumeru’s settings, “Erase all counts” (सारी गिनती मिटाएँ) deletes everything the app has stored (your counts, pothi, sankalps, mantra, name, city, preferences and any summaries still waiting to be sent) and cancels your reminders. Uninstalling Sumeru deletes all of it too.

Summaries that have already been sent cannot be deleted from the app. Because they carry no name or contact details, we usually cannot tell which ones are yours, but if you would like us to remove them, write to us and we will do our best to help.

Sumeru is a devotional app for families and is not directed at children. It does not ask anyone for personal details. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, for example by email, please contact us and we will delete it.

If Sumeru changes the way it handles information, we will update this page and the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will also mention it in the app.

For any question, request or concern about your privacy, write to Nothing Labs at info@nothinglabs.in. We read every message and will reply as soon as we can.