Skyhue

Privacy policy

Last updated 24 October 2026. The same facts appear inside the app under Settings, then Data & Privacy, next to a live count of every request the app has made.

The short version

Skyhue has no accounts, no analytics, no advertising and no third-party trackers. It talks to one server, which we run, over an encrypted connection. The only things it sends are the rounded coordinates of the cities you chose and the text you type when searching for a city. Nothing it sends identifies you.

What the app sends

  • Forecasts are fetched by coordinates alone, rounded to 0.01° (about a kilometre), with no identifier of any kind. Our server passes those rounded coordinates to Apple Weather to get the forecast and sends the result back.
  • City searches go to our server, which answers them from its own copy of the GeoNames place list. The text you type is not passed to anyone.
  • My Location is opt-in and coarse: the app asks iOS for approximate location only, rounds it to 0.01°, and sends just those numbers to our server to find the nearest town name and time zone. Your position is read only while the app is open, never in the background, and never at full precision. The Sky map's locate button uses the same permission to show where you are on the map.
  • Sky maps load light-pollution and aurora tiles from our server for the area you are looking at. The base map underneath is drawn by Apple Maps on your phone, so Apple sees which area of the map you view, as with any map app.
  • Update check: once per launch the app asks our server which build is newest, and asks Apple's public App Store lookup for the listed version, sending only the app's bundle identifier.
  • Purchases of Skyhue Plus are handled by the App Store on your phone. We never see who you are, and nothing about a purchase is sent to our server.

What our server keeps

Forecasts are held in memory for about ten minutes, keyed by rounded coordinates, so a second request for the same area does not cost another call to Apple. Our access logs record the request path with coordinates and search text removed, the response status and the time taken. They hold no coordinates, no searches and no IP addresses. Nothing is sent to any crash-reporting or analytics service. Requests travel over HTTPS to api.skyhue.app, with a certificate issued to us; no content-delivery network or proxy sits in front of the server.

What stays on your phone

Your cities, settings, the forecasts the app last fetched and its daily history live on your phone, and in your own iCloud or device backup like any app's data. Notifications, if you turn any on, are planned on your phone from forecasts it already has; there is no push server and no device token. Delete the app and all of it is gone.

Data sources

Apple Weather
Forecasts, alerts and conditions, displayed under Apple's attribution requirements. Apple's legal and data sources page.
GeoNames
City search and the town name for My Location, from a copy of the GeoNames place list held on our server (geonames.org, CC BY 4.0).
Apple Maps
The base map under the Sky map, drawn on your phone.
Natural Earth and NOAA ETOPO 2022
Coastlines and relief used to pick each city's background. Public domain.
Köppen-Geiger climate map
Climate zones used to pick each city's background. Beck, H.E. et al. (2023), Scientific Data 10:724; data doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.21789074.v2, CC BY 4.0; resampled and classified by us.
CHELSA climate data
Temperature and rainfall used to pick each city's background. Karger et al. (2017), Scientific Data 4:170122; CHELSA V2.1, CC0 1.0.
Copernicus Global Land Cover
Tree cover used to pick each city's background. Buchhorn, M. et al. (2020), Land Cover 100m, collection 3, epoch 2019, V3.0.1, doi:10.5281/zenodo.3939050, CC BY 4.0. Generated using European Union's Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information.
Time zones
Found on our server with tzf. Contains information from timezone-boundary-builder, which is made available under the Open Database License (ODbL); © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Copernicus DEM (GLO-30)
Each city's elevation. Produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018, provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved. The organisations in charge of the Copernicus programme by law or by delegation do not incur any liability for any use of the Copernicus WorldDEM-30.
NASA Black Marble
Satellite night-light data (VIIRS, VNP46A4, doi:10.5067/VIIRS/VNP46A4.002) behind the sky-darkness rating and map. NASA, public domain. The sky-brightness model is our own computation from this data, calibrated against Globe at Night citizen-science readings (globeatnight.org, CC BY 4.0).
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
Aurora forecast (OVATION) and Kp index. US government data, public domain. Planet and Moon positions are computed in the app from published orbital elements.
d3-celestial constellation data
Constellation names and positions, © 2015 Olaf Frohn, BSD 3-Clause; positions follow the IAU constellations.
Figtree typeface
By Erik Kennedy, bundled under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.

Terms

YOUR USE OF THIS REAL-TIME WEATHER GUIDANCE APPLICATION OR WEBSITE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. WEATHER DATA MAY NOT BE ACCURATE. Apple Weather data may vary from actual conditions due to variable factors, such as signal issues and geopolitical events, that can affect its accuracy.

Skyhue is not designed for emergency or life-saving use. For warnings that affect your safety, follow your national weather service and local authorities.

Changes and contact

If what the app sends ever changes, this page and the in-app page change with it, and the date at the top moves. Questions go to support@skyhue.app.