Privacy Policy

NoiseZ is operated by Pinestraw Enterprises (“we”) and distributed on the App Store by its subsidiary Deux, LLC. This policy explains what information the NoiseZ iOS app processes and the choices available to you.

Information we process

• Account: If you create an account, we process your email address, any display name you provide, your sign-in provider, and an account identifier. Firebase Authentication handles sign-in, including Sign in with Apple. The app keeps session credentials in the iOS Keychain.
• Purchases: Apple handles payments and provides purchase and entitlement information so the app can unlock premium features and restore purchases. Apple also sends our server App Store notifications about subscription changes, such as renewals, expirations, refunds, and billing problems; these include transaction, product, and Apple account-token identifiers, not your name, email address, or payment details. When you buy while signed in to a NoiseZ account, the purchase carries a random-looking token derived from your account identifier so these notifications can be matched to your account; purchases made while signed out carry none. When you cancel a subscription, Apple may show you a short message from us in its cancellation screen; Apple chooses when to show it, and we receive nothing about it. We do not receive your payment card number.
• Usage: Whether usage analytics starts on or off depends on the region set on your device (see Your choices). In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, it is off until you allow it, either in Privacy Choices or when NoiseZ asks once after you have listened on two different days. Elsewhere it is on unless you turn it off in Privacy Choices. When it is on, Firebase Analytics receives app interaction events: onboarding steps, which catalog sounds you play and how long listening sessions last, timers, that you opened or used search (never what you searched for), which features you use (such as breathing, the mixer, Noise Board, Gentle Wake, reminders, badges, and whether iCloud Sync is turned on), and subscription steps such as viewing plans, starting a free trial, purchases, renewals, and restores, including the product, price, and currency. Analytics also records your current plan and whether you are in a free trial. It also records why you use NoiseZ (sleep, focus, a baby or exploring), if you choose to say. These events can include a Firebase app or device identifier. They never include anything you type or write, your dreams, recordings, saved place names or locations, or search text. NoiseZ turns off Firebase Analytics’ use of the advertising identifier and ad personalization signals, so analytics is not used to personalize ads. While usage analytics is on, NoiseZ also asks Apple’s AdServices once whether the app was installed from an Apple Search Ads campaign and records only the campaign, ad group, keyword, and ad identifiers Apple returns; this does not use the advertising identifier or require tracking permission.
• Diagnostics: Crash reports follow the same regional rule: in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland they are sent only if you allow them, in Privacy Choices or in the same one-time request; elsewhere they are on unless you turn them off in Privacy Choices. When they are on, Firebase Crashlytics receives crash reports and related diagnostics, including app and device details needed to investigate problems, a short record of recent app events (such as playback starting or stopping and audio interruptions), app state at the time (such as the current sound, timer mode, and narration language), and errors from purchases, restores, and audio playback. NoiseZ also forwards Apple’s MetricKit diagnostics for the app (crashes, hangs, heavy CPU or disk use, and slow launches) as crash reports. When usage analytics is on, the daily count of times iOS ended NoiseZ, by reason, is sent to Firebase Analytics. None of this includes anything you type or write.
• Advertising: In NoiseZ 6.2 and later, free listeners may see Google AdMob native, banner and interstitial ads. Where the law requires it, Google’s consent message asks for your ad choices first, and NoiseZ asks once for App Tracking Transparency permission. Google and its advertising partners may process device identifiers (including the advertising identifier when permitted), IP address, app and ad interactions, and consent choices to deliver ads, limit repeated ads, and measure performance. Non-personalized ads may still use identifiers for frequency limits and aggregate reporting. NoiseZ does not request ads for subscribers or customers with ad-free access.
• Apple Watch: If you turn on light-sleep waking for Gentle Wake, the NoiseZ Watch app reads your wrist’s movement from the Watch’s motion sensor during your wake window to choose a moment of light sleep, and tells your iPhone only that moment so the alarm can begin. The movement readings stay on your Watch and are never sent to our servers or to any service provider.
• Dream Catcher: When you speak a dream, the microphone audio is transcribed with on-device speech recognition and saved as text; the audio is not kept. Suggested titles and tags are created on your device. Your dream journal is stored on your device with iOS data protection, and you can lock it with Face ID or your passcode. NoiseZ never receives your face data.
• Sound Souvenirs and A Parent’s Voice: Recordings you make with the microphone, including a lullaby or goodnight recorded for A Parent’s Voice, are processed and stored on your device. NoiseZ does not upload them.
• Faraway Weather: NoiseZ does not use your device location. When you search for a place, the text you type is sent to Apple Maps to suggest matches. The coordinates of places you save are sent to Apple WeatherKit to fetch their weather. Saved places stay on your device.
• iCloud Sync: When iCloud Sync is on, your favorites and mixes are stored in your own iCloud account so they appear on your other devices. Apple provides this storage; we cannot read it. You can turn iCloud Sync off from the menu.
• Fall asleep together: When you invite someone to fall asleep together, or open such an invite, NoiseZ signs in with an anonymous Firebase account that is not linked to your NoiseZ account, email, or device advertising identifier. Cloud Firestore stores one shared session: a random session id, the anonymous ids of the people in it, what to play (a playlist name or the sounds and settings of a mix), the shared start time, when each person joined, and when each person finished resting. NoiseZ decides that you rested on your device, from listening of at least three hours that began with the invite; it sends only the time that listening ended, never your listening history. A first name is stored only if you type one, and only the other people in that session can see it. Nobody else can read or list sessions. Each session is deleted automatically 7 days after it was created. The shared star it may add to “Your Sky” is kept on your device.
• Other on-device data: Your sound choices, play counts, listening history, “Your Sky,” Firefly Jar notes, achievements, timers, reminders, alarms, and settings are stored on your device. The Sleep Lab tools run on your device: Letting Go and Imagine a Sound do not save what you write, Body Scan, Sleep Stories, and guided sessions play their narration on your device, and Brainwave Tones, Sound Stage, and Tone Relief generate their audio on your device. Sounds may be added to on-device Spotlight search. Images you share, such as your sky, go only where you choose to send them.

The website

This applies to noisez.app (and noisez.strawpine.com, which serves the same pages), including the web player, the sound pages, share pages, embedded players and the other pages there. The App Store privacy answers describe the app and are unchanged.

• No account, no cookies: The website has no accounts and no sign-in. It sets no cookies, keeps nothing about you in your browser and loads no third-party scripts or advertising tags. To let the player open without a connection, your browser may keep a copy of the site’s own pages, styles, scripts and icons; it never keeps sound files or the addresses of shared links, and clearing the site’s data removes it.
• Counting visits to the website: A small first-party counter sends our own server (a NoiseZ service on Cloudflare) three kinds of event: a sound started, roughly how long a page played (1, 5, 15, 30 or 60+ minutes), and a tap on an App Store link. Each carries only the kind of page (such as the player or a shared mix) and the page’s language; our server adds the country and whether the device is a phone, tablet or computer, both read from the request. No identifier, IP address, full web address or browser details are stored, so the counts cannot be tied to you or to one another. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, nothing is sent.
• Sounds and shared links: Sound previews are fetched from our Cloudflare storage, and the noise colors are made in your browser. A shared sound, mix or playlist link carries what to play in the link itself; the page reads it in your browser and sends it nowhere.
• Fall asleep together on the web: Opening a Fall asleep together invitation in a browser only plays what the invitation describes. The website does not join the shared session, sign you in or tell anyone that you opened it; that happens only in the app, as described above.
• App Store links: The App Store button carries an Apple campaign token naming the kind of page (for example web-sound). Apple’s App Analytics then reports downloads per campaign to us in aggregate; we add no identifier on the web side.

Why we use it

We use this information to operate app features and sign-in, provide purchase access, understand app use, investigate failures, and configure the service. Free listeners see Google AdMob ads in NoiseZ 6.2 and later; earlier versions did not show ads. Personalized advertising, where available, depends on applicable consent and App Tracking Transparency choices.

Service providers

Google Firebase provides authentication, Remote Config, analytics, and crash reporting; analytics and crash reporting follow the choices described below. Remote Config delivers the downloadable sound catalog and app settings, and may compare variations of a setting, such as how often ads appear, using the analytics described above; it receives a Firebase installation identifier and basic app and device details, not your personal content. Downloadable sounds and guided-session narration are fetched over HTTPS from Cloudflare R2 storage or, on iOS 26 and later, from Apple-hosted downloads through the App Store; the sound previews on our website come from the same Cloudflare storage. Cloudflare receives the request details any web server needs to deliver a file, such as your IP address and the file requested, and nothing from your account or your content. Cloudflare, Inc. also runs the small NoiseZ service that counts website visits as described above. Google Cloud Functions and Cloud Firestore receive and store the App Store subscription notifications described above, and Cloud Firestore keeps Fall asleep together sessions. Google AdMob and its advertising partners provide ads to free listeners. Apple provides App Store purchases, Apple Search Ads attribution, Sign in with Apple, iCloud, Apple Maps place search, and Apple Weather data through WeatherKit for Faraway Weather on your device, each under Apple’s own privacy policy. We require service providers that handle user data on our behalf to provide the same or equivalent protections described in this policy. We do not sell personal information.

Retention and deletion

Account information remains until you delete your NoiseZ account or ask us to help remove it. Use Menu → Delete Account in the app to remove the sign-in account and its profile. This does not cancel an Apple subscription or remove purchases from your Apple Account. It also does not remove data stored on your device, such as dreams, recordings, and settings; you can delete those in the app, and deleting the app removes them. Favorites and mixes synced with iCloud remain in your iCloud account until you remove them there. Entries that versions before 6.4 wrote to Apple Health stay in the Health app until you delete them there.

Our Google Analytics property is set to retain event data for 14 months and user data for 14 months; the user-data period resets when the user is active again. These settings do not affect most aggregated reports. Crashlytics keeps crash data for approximately 90 days before beginning deletion from its systems. App Store subscription notifications are kept for 25 months and then deleted. Fall asleep together sessions are deleted automatically 7 days after they are created. The website’s visit counts hold nothing that identifies you and are kept as totals. Some records may be retained longer when needed for security, accounting, or legal obligations. For access, correction, or deletion requests, email support@strawpine.com. We will explain any limits on removing analytics events that cannot be linked to your account.

Your choices

You can use the free sound library without an account, decline or later revoke optional permissions (microphone, speech recognition, Face ID, and notifications) in iOS Settings, turn off iCloud Sync, delete a NoiseZ account in the app, and manage subscriptions in your Apple Account settings. NoiseZ uses your device’s region setting to choose the starting point for usage analytics and crash reports. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, and wherever the region cannot be read, both stay off until you allow them. Elsewhere, NoiseZ 6.3.1 and later turn both on by default; NoiseZ 6.0 through 6.3 keep them off until you allow them, and the earlier 5.8 release may collect them automatically. A choice you have already made is kept. Open Menu → Privacy Choices to turn either service on or off at any time. Free listeners can also review available AdMob privacy options there. You can change App Tracking Transparency permission in iOS Settings. Declining tracking does not necessarily remove ads; it prevents use of the advertising identifier for cross-app tracking. Turning off analytics also resets its data stored on your device. Turning off crash reporting stops automatic uploads on your next app launch and deletes unsent reports stored on your device. Previously sent data may remain under the retention periods above; contact us for a deletion request.

Security and children

We use HTTPS for network requests and the iOS Keychain for session credentials. Dreams and recordings are stored with iOS data protection. NoiseZ is intended for a general audience and is not designed specifically for children. If you believe a child provided account information, contact us.

Changes and contact

We may update this policy as the app changes and will post the current version here with a new effective date. Contact support@strawpine.com for privacy questions or requests.