Ebbmoon Tides & Solunar: Privacy Policy

The CoffeePot (developer: Dragusin Bogdan) · Last updated: 10 November 2026

This policy covers Ebbmoon Tides & Solunar for Garmin watches (Connect IQ) and for Android phones and Wear OS watches (Google Play, package com.coffeepot.ebbmoon; one listing, a phone app and a watch app).

Summary

Ebbmoon uses your position on the device only (the watch, or the phone for the phone app). To download tide or current predictions for a NOAA (US-area) station it sends one thing over the internet: the ID of that station (for example 8443970 for Boston). Tides for the other stations worldwide are calculated on the device from tidal constants built into the app, with no internet request at all. If you use both the phone app and the watch app, your saved places and the height unit are copied between your own two devices, never to us. Your position is never sent. We do not run a server for this app and receive no data from it. There are no accounts, no advertising, no analytics and no tracking.

Your position

• What: the device's position. On Garmin: the last GPS fix, a GPS fix you ask for in the menu, or a fixed location you type into the app's settings in Garmin Connect. On Wear OS and on the Android phone app: your approximate (coarse) location, only while you use the app (no background location). Instead of your position you can use a saved place (a name and a point you choose, for example on the phone app's station chart).
• Why: to calculate sunrise, sunset, twilight, moonrise, moonset, moon phase and the solunar periods on the device, and to find the nearest tide station in a list built into the app.
• Where it goes: nowhere. It is stored on the device until you uninstall the app or clear its data. It is not sent to us, to NOAA or to anyone else.

Tide downloads (NOAA)

• When predictions are needed (on first use, when you choose Refresh tides, when the stored predictions run low, and on Garmin in a background check every 6 hours that only downloads when fewer than 4 days of predictions are left), the app requests that station's high and low tides from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's public tide service, api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov.
• The request contains the station ID, the date range, the units and the app name ("ebbmoon"). It does not contain your position, name, account or any device identifier.
• On Garmin the request travels through the Garmin Connect app on your paired phone; on Wear OS it goes from the watch (or through the phone, depending on the watch's connection); the Android phone app makes it directly. Like any internet request, NOAA's servers and the networks in between see the IP address the request comes from. NOAA's own privacy policy applies to their service: https://www.noaa.gov/protecting-your-privacy.
• In US waters with a NOAA current station within 10 km, the app also requests that current station's predictions (slack water, max flood and ebb) from the same service; again the request contains only the current station's ID, the date range, the units and the app name.
• The predictions are stored on the device (about 8 days at a time on the watch, about a month on the phone) so the app works offline.
• Tides are also calculated on the device from tidal constants built into the app: NOAA's constants for 970+ US reference stations (public domain) and tide-gauge constants worldwide (TICON-4, DGFI-TUM, CC BY 4.0). Nothing is sent for these calculations.

Settings and other data

Units, saved places, alert choices, the shooting-light rule and computed sun and moon times are stored on the device. On devices with a barometer, the app keeps the air-pressure readings it takes while it runs (the last 24 hours) on the device for the bite window's pressure trend. Nothing else is read or stored: no contacts, health data, microphone, camera or files.

Phone and watch sync (Wear OS)

If you use Ebbmoon on both an Android phone and a Wear OS watch, the two apps copy your saved places (each place's name, position and chosen tide station) and the height unit (feet or metres) to each other over the Wear OS connection between your phone and watch (Google's Wearable Data Layer in Google Play services). Your current position, your alerts and your downloaded tides are not copied. This data goes only between your own devices; it is not sent to us. Each app works on its own without the other.

Alerts

Tide and bite-window alerts are optional and off until you turn them on. They are scheduled and shown on the device itself (notifications, exact alarms only if you allow them); nothing is sent anywhere.

Permissions

• Garmin: Positioning (the position, as above), Communications (the NOAA download through the phone), Background (the 6-hourly tide refresh).
• Wear OS watch and Android phone: approximate location (ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION, foreground only); internet access (INTERNET) for the NOAA downloads; notifications (POST_NOTIFICATIONS), exact alarms (SCHEDULE_EXACT_ALARM, only if you allow them), RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED (to set the next alert again after a restart) and VIBRATE for the optional alerts.

Children

The app is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone.

iPhone and Apple Watch

On iPhone and Apple Watch (App Store) the same rules apply. With your permission Ebbmoon uses your approximate position (location "while using the app") on your iPhone or Apple Watch to calculate sun and moon times and to pick the nearest tide station; it is never sent anywhere. For a NOAA station only its ID is sent to NOAA's public tide service (api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov) to download its predictions; all other tides are calculated on the device. With your permission the app reads the air pressure from the device's barometer to add the pressure trend to the bite window; the readings stay on the device. Tide and bite alerts are local notifications set on your device. Saved places and the height unit are exchanged only between your own iPhone and Apple Watch through Apple's WatchConnectivity. No account, no ads, no analytics; nothing is sent to us.

Third parties

Garmin (Connect IQ Store, Garmin Connect) and Google (Google Play, and Google Play services for the phone and watch sync) handle purchases, downloads and the connection between your devices under their own privacy policies. NOAA provides the US tide predictions and US tidal constants (public domain); the worldwide tide constants come from the TICON-4 dataset of DGFI-TUM (CC BY 4.0), shipped inside the app. Ebbmoon is not affiliated with or endorsed by NOAA or DGFI-TUM.

Changes

If this policy changes (for example if a future version fetched tides from another online provider), the updated version will be published at this address with a new date before the app update ships.

Contact

Questions about this policy: dragusinb@gmail.com
Dragusin Bogdan (The CoffeePot), Bucharest, Romania