Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 13, 2026 · Last updated: October 13, 2026

Busy Meter is a status light and a free Windows app that shows how busy you are. This policy explains what information the app, the light and our website handle, where it goes, and the choices you have.

The short version #

• Your status stays on your computer. The app reads your camera and microphone use, Microsoft Teams, Slack and your calendars on your PC, and uses them only to set your light. None of it is sent to us, unless you choose to send it in a problem report.
• The app never sees or hears you. It checks whether your camera or microphone is in use, from the same records behind Windows' own privacy indicators. It never opens the camera, never takes pictures and never records audio.
• AI coding agents: status only. If you turn this on, the app learns whether your Claude Code or Codex sessions are working or waiting for you. It never keeps or sends your prompts, code or transcripts.
• No account, no tracking. You don't need an account with us. The app has no analytics, no telemetry and no ads, and it never sends a crash or problem report by itself.
• Sign-ins are optional, read-only and direct. If you connect Microsoft or Slack, the app talks straight to them from your PC with read-only permissions. Your sign-in is stored encrypted on your PC, never with us.
• Our servers for the app: updates, and reports you send. The app asks the update server for new versions. That request carries your app version and update channel, and the server sees your IP address. Nothing about your status. If you choose Report a problem and click Send, the report goes to our report server (see "Diagnostics you choose to send").
• The light stays on your network. It runs the open-source WLED firmware and has no camera, microphone or cloud account. On a shared network, other people can change what it shows (see "The meter").
• When you buy, we use your details only to fill your order. We never sell or rent personal information.

What we never collect #

We never receive:

• Camera pictures or video, or microphone audio
• Meeting content, chat messages or email
• Your calendar events, their titles, descriptions, notes or attachments
• Your Microsoft, Slack or calendar passwords, or your Wi-Fi password
• Anything about your coworkers' status or calendars
• Your location, contacts or browsing history
• Your prompts, code, transcripts or conversations with AI coding tools or AI assistants

We don't use your information for advertising or to train AI models.

Who we are #

Busy Meter is made and sold by Zachary Tonsmeire ("Busy Meter", "we", "us") in Cartersville, Georgia, United States. For questions or privacy requests, email hello@thebusymeter.com.

What this policy covers #

• The Busy Meter app for Windows (the "app").
• The Busy Meter light and the settings we load onto it (the "meter"), including boards in DIY Kits and boards flashed from the Print Files.
• thebusymeter.com, including the setup guide and the web flasher (the "website").
• The app's update server, updates.thebusymeter.com, and its report server, reports.thebusymeter.com.
• Orders, shipping and support.

It doesn't cover other companies' services that you choose to use with Busy Meter, such as Microsoft, Slack, Google, Apple, Home Assistant, AI tools like Claude Code, Codex or Claude Desktop, or the marketplace you buy through. Their own privacy policies apply to what they do (links at the end).

The app #

What it reads and why #

The app turns signals on your PC into a level: Free (no stars, only the accent light), Away (1 star), Focus (2), On a call (3), In a meeting (4), Presenting (5), Do not disturb (6), or the red and blue Flash. Every source can be turned off in Settings.

Event titles are read only to spot focus time (for example, an event called "Focus"). They're checked in memory as the events arrive, never saved and never written to logs.

Calendar links work differently from a sign-in: the link gives the app your calendar's whole file, which can include descriptions, locations and attendees. The app reads it in memory, keeps only the details listed above, and saves none of it.

Camera and microphone: the app never gets the camera picture or microphone sound. It only reads the in-use records Windows keeps for its privacy settings.

Only your own status: the Microsoft and Slack sign-ins read your own status, never your coworkers'. The app can't post, send messages or change anything in your Microsoft or Slack accounts.

AI coding agents: when you click Connect for Claude Code or Codex, the app adds a few entries to that tool's own settings file (Claude Code's settings.json, Codex's hooks.json) so the tool runs Busy Meter's small helper, bm-agent, when a session starts, works, asks for permission or ends. The tool hands the helper details of each event; the helper keeps only the session ID, the kind of event and IDs of the tool's actions, and drops everything else (your prompts, code, files, commands, the tool's output and token counts) without saving it. It writes a small status note to %LOCALAPPDATA%\BusyMeter\agents and never connects to anything. While a tool is connected, the app keeps one copy of that tool's settings file from before its last change, next to it (.busymeter-backup). Disconnect takes out exactly the entries it added, leaves your own settings and hooks as they were, and deletes that copy. With the source on and Claude Code not connected, the app counts Claude Code sessions from the names and last-changed times of its session files and project folders instead; it never opens them. With the source off, it looks at none of this.

External connections and AI assistants (optional, off by default) #

External connections (Settings › Sources) lets programs on your own PC ask to set your light, through a connection that only programs on this PC can reach. Each program has to ask, and you allow it in a prompt that shows which program file is asking. An allowed program can set a level and, if it asked for them, see the level the light shows and which kind of source set it (for example "calendar" or "camera", never details), and see taps on the meter. You can switch each program, or each group of programs, off or revoke it at any time. Recipes and other programs you install are separate software; what they do with information is up to them.

AI assistants: the Set up buttons for Claude Desktop and Claude Code add one entry, named busymeter, to that assistant's own settings file (claude_desktop_config.json or .claude.json). It points at bm-mcp, a small program that comes with Busy Meter. After you click Allow in the prompt, the assistant can see the level your light shows and which kind of source set it, and set a level. Busy Meter sends nothing to us or to the assistant's maker because of this. What the assistant reads from your light becomes part of your conversation with it, and that conversation, like anything you type to it, is handled under the assistant maker's own privacy policy. For Claude Code, Set up and Remove use Claude Code's own claude mcp command when it's installed; that command may contact Anthropic as its own settings say. Remove takes the entry out again. bm-mcp keeps the access token you allowed in %LOCALAPPDATA%\busymeter-plugins\tokens, readable only by your Windows account.

While Settings › Sources is open with External connections on, the app re-reads these two settings files every few seconds to show whether Busy Meter is set up; it looks only for the busymeter entry and keeps nothing else from them. When it edits one, it first saves a copy next to it (.busymeter-backup), and when Replace puts Busy Meter in place of a busymeter entry of your own, it keeps your entry in .busymeter-replaced so Remove can put it back. The backup is a whole copy of the file, so it can hold whatever the assistant keeps there (Claude Code's .claude.json can hold your account's email address and your project folders). Both stay on your PC next to the original; Remove and uninstalling delete them.

Permissions the sign-ins ask for #

You sign in on Microsoft's or Slack's own page in your web browser. Your password never passes through the app. Some organizations require an administrator to approve apps before employees can connect them.

What's stored on your PC #

• Settings in %APPDATA%\BusyMeter\settings.json: your levels and colors, calendar rules and focus keywords, excluded microphone apps, update channel, and your meters (hardware ID, edition, last network address and USB port). No passwords, tokens or calendar links.
• Sign-in tokens, the Teams pairing token and your calendar links in %LOCALAPPDATA%\BusyMeter\secrets, encrypted with Windows' built-in data protection so only your Windows account can read them.
• Troubleshooting logs in %LOCALAPPDATA%\BusyMeter\logs. They record what the app did, for example status changes from each source (including your Teams presence), levels you picked, taps on the meter, and meter connections with their local network addresses. The app keeps one log file per day and deletes all but the newest 7. Before a line is written, links are cut down to the website's name, and email addresses and anything that looks like a token are masked. Logs never contain passwords, tokens, your calendar links or event titles.
• Crash notes in %LOCALAPPDATA%\BusyMeter\crash, if the app closes unexpectedly: what went wrong inside the app, with the same masking plus your Windows user name and PC name taken out. The newest 10 are kept. They're sent only as part of a problem report you send.
• AI coding agents (if you turn them on): the status notes and the helper's own small error log in %LOCALAPPDATA%\BusyMeter\agents, and, while a tool is connected, the entries and the one backup copy in that tool's folder described above.
• AI assistants (if you set one up): the busymeter entry in the assistant's settings file, the .busymeter-backup copy of that file and, after a Replace, your own entry in .busymeter-replaced (both deleted by Remove and by uninstalling), and bm-mcp's access token, described above.
• A start-up entry in Windows, if "Start when you sign in to Windows" is on (it's on by default).

None of this is sent to us, unless you send it in a problem report.

Signing out of Microsoft or Slack in the app deletes that account's tokens from your PC. It doesn't remove the app's permission from your account; you can do that on Microsoft's or Slack's own app-permissions page.

Uninstalling removes the app, its logs, crash notes, encrypted tokens and calendar links, and the AI coding agents' status notes (all in %LOCALAPPDATA%\BusyMeter), its Start menu entry and its start-up entry. It also takes Busy Meter's entries, and its backup copies, out of Claude Code's and Codex's settings, and the busymeter entry out of Claude Desktop's and Claude Code's settings, leaving everything of yours in those files. An entry stays where the app can't change a file safely: Claude Desktop's while Claude Desktop is open, and any file that is too big, isn't plain JSON (for example, it has comments) or is a link to a file elsewhere. Delete those entries by hand (the setup guide shows them), or reinstall Busy Meter and use Disconnect or Remove. Your settings file in %APPDATA%\BusyMeter stays, so a reinstall remembers your meters and choices. It holds no passwords, tokens or calendar links. To remove it too, delete that folder. bm-mcp's access token in %LOCALAPPDATA%\busymeter-plugins also stays (it's shared with the optional Busy Meter tools); delete that folder to remove it.

What leaves your PC #

Only these, and only for the features you use:

1. Commands to your meter, over the USB cable or your local network.
2. Looking for meters on your local network. The app listens for WLED lights announcing themselves on your network and asks each one whether it's a Busy Meter. It only controls meters you've added.
3. Requests to Microsoft, Slack or your calendar services, if you connect them. They go straight from your PC to that service. We're never in the middle.
4. Update checks to updates.thebusymeter.com, hosted by Cloudflare. The app checks about 30 seconds after it starts and then every 6 hours, and downloads signed updates in the background. Each check asks for the release list of your update channel (stable or beta) and includes the app's installed version and that it's a 64-bit Windows app. Like any website, the server sees your IP address and basic request details. The check carries nothing about you, your status or your settings, and no ID unique to your PC.
5. Wi-Fi setup. If you put your meter on Wi-Fi from the app, the app sends your Wi-Fi name and password to the meter over the USB cable. The meter keeps them so it can connect; the app doesn't save or log them.
6. Problem reports, only when you click Send in Report a problem: one upload to reports.thebusymeter.com, hosted by Cloudflare (see "Diagnostics you choose to send"). The app never sends one by itself, and it doesn't retry.

The AI coding agents source, External connections and the AI assistants setup work only on your PC: they add nothing to this list.

The app has no telemetry, analytics or advertising, and no crash or problem reporting that runs without you.

Diagnostics you choose to send #

Copy diagnostics. If you ask us for help, the app's Copy diagnostics button (Settings › About & updates) copies a report to your clipboard. It contains: the app, Windows and .NET versions; what the meter is showing and why; your meters (name, edition, connection, local network address or USB port, firmware version); each source's status, including the names of apps using your camera or microphone at that moment; your settings file; and the last 200 log lines. Links are cut down to the website's name, and email addresses and anything that looks like a token are masked. Nothing is sent unless you paste it into a message to us yourself, so read it first and remove anything you don't want to share.

Report a problem. If you choose Report a problem (Settings › About & updates, or the tray menu) and click Send, the app uploads a report to our server at reports.thebusymeter.com. It always holds what you type in "What happened?" (cut to 4,000 characters, with links cut down and email addresses and anything that looks like a token masked), the email address you enter (optional, so we can reply), the app version and update channel, your Windows and .NET versions, language and time zone, and how long the app had been running. If you leave Include diagnostics and logs on, it also holds: the Copy diagnostics report above (your settings, meters and sources); the app's logs from the last 7 days and the updater's log; a record of the app's last 500 level changes (when, which level, which source and signal won); for each of your meters, its name, model, firmware version, hardware ID, local network address, Wi-Fi signal strength and channel, LED details, technical counters (such as free memory, uptime and its effect and palette counts) and preset names (never its Wi-Fi name, password or other settings); for AI coding agents, which tools are connected, where their hook entries are and how many sessions are in each state; and crash notes.

Before anything is sent, the app takes out calendar links, sign-in tokens, meeting titles, account, workspace and calendar names, Slack data, programs' access tokens, anything from your AI coding tools or assistants beyond the counts above, Wi-Fi names and passwords, your meter's update password and settings PIN, and your Windows user name and PC name. Text you typed into the app's own settings, such as level names or focus keywords, stays as you wrote it. See what's included opens the exact files first, and Save as file lets you email the report to us yourself instead. Nothing is sent unless you click Send.

Reports are stored privately with our hosting provider, Cloudflare, where only we can read them, and are deleted automatically after 90 days. We also get an email notice with the report's ID, the app version and what you typed in "What happened?" and, if you typed your email address, that address, so we can reply. The notice is delivered by Resend, an email delivery service. We use a report only to look into and fix the problem it describes. Your IP address is used only to limit how many reports can be sent: our report service keeps it until an hour after the last report from that address, and never stores it with the report. (Cloudflare, like any web host, also sees it; see "Server logs" under "The website".) To have a report deleted sooner, email hello@thebusymeter.com with its report ID (shown after you send it, for example BM-7F3K2QXA).

The meter #

The meter runs the open-source WLED firmware, unmodified, with our settings. It has LEDs and a touch pad. It has no camera, no microphone and no motion or presence sensor.

What it stores: your Wi-Fi name and password (if you put it on Wi-Fi), its name, its colors and light presets, its settings, and (on meters we flash) its own firmware-update password and settings PIN.

Who it talks to: your PC, over USB or Wi-Fi, and devices on your local network, such as Home Assistant. Like other WLED lights, it announces itself on your local network so apps can find it. It doesn't need an account. In the settings we ship, WLED's internet time sync, MQTT, Philips Hue and Alexa features are off, and nothing in our settings connects to us or to any cloud service.

On shared networks, please read this: anyone on the same Wi-Fi network as your meter can change what it shows, without a password. They can do it from a web browser through WLED's own page or its control interface, or with other apps that control WLED lights. A coworker or guest could make your meter say you're free when you're busy, or the other way round. The Busy Meter app only controls meters you've added, so two people's apps won't mix up their meters by accident, but that doesn't stop someone doing it on purpose. Nobody can read anything from your PC through the meter.

To limit what they can do, meters we flash before shipping have their own firmware-update password and a 4-digit settings PIN. Together they protect firmware updates, Wi-Fi and hardware settings, file uploads and factory reset. A 4-digit PIN slows someone down; it doesn't make guessing impossible. Boards flashed with our web flasher (for example from the Print Files, or a meter you re-flash yourself) have neither the password nor the PIN.

If any of this matters to you, keep the meter on USB, or on a network only you and people you trust use.

Setup hotspot: a meter that has no Wi-Fi it can join opens a Wi-Fi hotspot called "Busy Meter Setup". Its password is the same for every meter and is printed on the quick-start card in the box (not online), so anyone nearby who knows it can join it while it's open.

Before you give it away: erase your Wi-Fi details first. Recovery flashing erases them: see https://thebusymeter.com/guide/recovery.

The website #

Server logs: our website, update server and report server are hosted by Cloudflare, which records standard request details (IP address, browser type, pages or files requested and time) to run and protect the service. We don't keep copies of these records; Cloudflare keeps them for the time set in its own privacy policy. Our report service itself keeps no request logs.

Cookies: we use only the cookies the site needs to work. We don't use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies, and we don't sell or share your browsing data.

Web flasher: the web flasher uses your browser's built-in Web Serial feature to write firmware to a board plugged into your computer. Nothing about your board or computer is sent back to us.

Messages: if you email us or use a contact form, we get your name, email address and what you write. We use it to reply.

Orders #

What we receive: your name, shipping address, email address, phone number (if you give one), what you ordered, and any notes or messages.

Payments are handled by the payment provider or marketplace shown at checkout. We never see or store your full card number.

What we use it for: making and shipping your order, sending order and shipping updates, answering questions, handling returns and warranty claims, preventing fraud, and keeping the tax and accounting records the law requires.

If you buy through a marketplace such as Etsy, that marketplace's privacy policy also applies. It shares your order details with us so we can fill your order, and we use them only for that and the purposes above.

Buying something doesn't sign you up for marketing email. We don't run an email list.

Who we share information with #

We share personal information only with companies that help us run Busy Meter, only what they need, and only for that job:

• Payments and marketplace: the payment provider or marketplace shown at checkout
• Shipping: the shipping carrier for your order, which gets your name, address and, if needed, phone number to deliver your order
• Email: Google (Gmail), where our support inbox and the email notice of each problem report are kept
• Website, web flasher, app updates and problem reports: Cloudflare (hosting and private storage of the reports you send)
• Problem report notices: Resend, which delivers the email notice of each report you send to our inbox

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect someone's safety or our rights, or as part of selling the business, in which case this policy keeps applying to your information.

We don't sell personal information, and we don't share it for targeted advertising or profiling. We haven't done so in the past 12 months.

Categories of personal information (for U.S. state privacy laws) #

In the past 12 months we have collected these categories, only from you, your marketplace or your browser, for the purposes described above:

We don't collect sensitive personal information as defined by those laws: no precise location, biometrics, government ID numbers, account passwords, or audio or video of you.

How long we keep it #

Your choices and rights #

In the app: turn any source off, sign out of Microsoft or Slack (this deletes the stored tokens), remove calendar links, disconnect Claude Code or Codex, remove an AI assistant's entry, switch off or revoke any program under External connections, pause syncing, or uninstall. You can also remove the app's access on your Microsoft account's app permissions page or Slack's app management page.

Your rights: depending on where you live, including California, other U.S. states with privacy laws, the EU and the UK, you may have the right to:

• know what personal information we have about you and get a copy;
• correct it;
• delete it;
• opt out of its sale, sharing for targeted advertising, or profiling (we do none of these).

We honor these requests for everyone, wherever you live, and we won't treat you differently for making one.

To make a request, email hello@thebusymeter.com from the email address on your order, or include your order number, so we can confirm it's you. An authorized agent can make a request for you with your written permission. We'll respond within 30 days. If we can't do what you ask, we'll tell you why, and you can appeal by replying to that email. If you're still not satisfied, you can contact your state attorney general or local data protection authority.

Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track: we honor browser opt-out signals such as Global Privacy Control. We don't track you across other websites, so there's nothing for Do Not Track to switch off.

EU and UK visitors: we use personal information to fulfil our contract with you (orders and support), to meet legal obligations (tax records), for our legitimate interests (preventing fraud, securing the website, update server and report server, and looking into problem reports you send). We're based in the United States, and your information is processed there. You can complain to your local data protection authority.

Children #

Busy Meter is a work tool and isn't directed to children. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, or under 16 where local law sets a higher age. If you think a child has sent us information, email us and we'll delete it.

Security #

• Sign-in tokens and calendar links are encrypted on your PC with Windows' data protection. This protects them from other Windows accounts and from copies of the files; it can't protect them from harmful software running in your own Windows account.
• Connections to Microsoft, Slack, calendar services and our update and report servers use HTTPS. The app refuses calendar links that aren't encrypted (http://).
• The app, its helpers (bm-agent and bm-mcp) and its installer are code-signed, and each downloaded update is checked against the release list before it installs.
• The app doesn't accept connections from other computers. On your own PC it accepts one for a moment while you sign in to Microsoft or Slack, and, only while External connections is on, requests from programs on your PC, acting only for programs you allowed.
• The report server only accepts reports: nobody can read or list reports from the internet.
• Meters we flash have a per-unit firmware-update password and settings PIN (see "The meter" for what they do and don't cover).

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal information, we'll tell you as the law requires.

Other companies' privacy policies #

• Microsoft: https://privacy.microsoft.com/privacystatement
• Slack: https://slack.com/trust/privacy/privacy-policy
• Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/
• Resend: https://resend.com/legal/privacy-policy
• Anthropic (Claude Code, Claude Desktop): https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy
• OpenAI (Codex): https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy/
• Google (Gmail): https://policies.google.com/privacy
• The payment provider or marketplace you buy through: its privacy policy, linked at checkout
• WLED firmware (open source): https://github.com/wled/WLED

Changes to this policy #

When we change this policy, we'll update the "Last updated" date. If we make a significant change, we'll announce it on this page and in the app's release notes before it takes effect. If the app ever adds a feature that sends information off your PC, that feature will be off until you turn it on.

Contact #

Zachary Tonsmeire, Busy Meter Cartersville, Georgia, United States hello@thebusymeter.com