Rote

Privacy Policy

Rote is a remote control for your TV. It has no accounts, no ads, and no tracking.

Last updated: 10 August 2026

The short version

Rote works on your home Wi-Fi and talks directly to your TV. There is nothing to sign up for, and we never ask for your name, email, or phone number.

Two things leave your phone, and only in specific situations: what you write to support, and — if you switch it on yourself — anonymous usage statistics. Nothing else.

What the app does on your network

To work at all, Rote needs to find your TV and send it commands. iOS calls this the Local Network permission, and the app asks for it once.

Discovery and every button press happen directly between your phone and your TV. Those commands do not pass through our servers, and we never see them. The same is true of Private Listening: the audio stream goes straight from the TV to your phone.

We do not collect, store, or transmit the names of devices on your network, their addresses, or the results of any network scan.

Support chat

If you open the support chat and send a message, that message goes to our server and is then processed by a third-party AI service (OpenRouter, Inc., which routes the request to the language model that writes the answer) in order to produce an answer. The app tells you this in the chat itself and asks for your permission before the first message is sent. Our AI provider is bound to give your data the same or equal protection as described in this policy, does not use it to train models, and may not pass it on further.

Along with your message we send a short technical summary so that support does not have to ask you the obvious. It contains:

It does not contain your network addresses, your TV's hardware address, a list of other devices on your network, or any diagnostic log.

Please do not type personal details into the chat — it is a technical support channel and nothing there is needed to help you.

Usage statistics — off unless you turn them on

Rote can send anonymous usage statistics, and this is disabled by default. You can switch it on, and back off again, in Settings. Turning it off also erases anything still queued on your phone.

When enabled, we receive a random identifier generated on your device at install time, plus which parts of the app were used. That identifier is not your Apple ID, not your device's advertising identifier, and not tied to any account — there are no accounts. We do not attempt to connect it to you, and we never combine it with data from anywhere else.

What we collect, in Apple's terms

DataWhyLinked to youUsed for tracking
Other user content — your support messagesApp functionalityNoNo
Other diagnostic data — the technical summary aboveApp functionalityNoNo
User ID — random install identifierAnalytics, only if enabledNoNo
Product interaction — which features were usedAnalytics, only if enabledNoNo

What we never do

Where data goes and how long it stays

Our server is operated by us. Support messages are processed to generate a reply and are not used to train any model. Server logs record only the fact and timing of a request, without message contents, and are rotated regularly. Usage statistics, if you enabled them, are kept in aggregate.

Children

Rote is not directed at children and collects nothing that would identify anyone, of any age.

Your choices

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that affects what leaves your phone, we will update the date at the top and describe the change here.

Contact

Questions, or a deletion request: henry.seo@calviona.link