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BearingKind Baby Sleep Tracker
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Things you can do yourself, right now
The app stores records on your device. On iPhone it copies them to your own iCloud on its own, and on Android it can keep a copy in your own Google Drive. Both are yours, and we can read neither. BearingKind Sync, the paid service you need for sharing a diary, keeps an encrypted copy on our server that we cannot read either.
Back up your records. Settings has a backup export. It produces a single file containing everything the app holds. Save it somewhere you trust. Do this before changing phones and periodically afterwards. See "Data recovery" below.
Restore from a backup. The app can import a backup file when you set it up on a new device, and can merge one into your own diary afterwards. An import can be undone for 5 minutes, and nothing syncs during those minutes.
Move to a new iPhone. Sign in to the same Apple Account on the new phone and install the app. Your history arrives from iCloud on its own. Or export a backup file and import it. Both work; iCloud is less work and a backup file is a copy you control.
Move to a new Android phone. If your diary is in your Google Drive, the new phone needs the key it is encrypted with. Set the new phone up from your old phone's Google backup, on the same Google account, and the key comes with it when the old phone had a screen lock; your history then arrives from Drive on its own. Otherwise, open Settings on the old phone, choose "Move between phones", then "Move to another phone", and scan the code it shows with the new one. Both phones keep the diary. Or export a backup file and import it.
Move a diary that is on BearingKind Sync. A sync account records from one phone at a time. A new phone on the same Apple Account, or a new Android phone that has the key to your Google Drive copy (above), finds your diary on its own and opens it for viewing. Press "Record from this phone" there and the new phone takes over. The old phone stops recording and, if it shares your cloud account, switches to viewing. If the two phones share no cloud, for example iPhone to Android, open Settings on the old phone, choose "Move between phones", then "Move to another phone", and scan the code it shows with the new one. Diaries you joined do not move this way. Ask their owners to invite you again.
Use two phones that both record. Invite the second phone to your diary as a caregiver.
Know where the Drive key is. The Google Drive copy is encrypted with a key the app creates on your phone and never gives to us. The app keeps it in Google Block Store on the phone and, when the phone has a screen lock, in your phone's Google backup, encrypted so that Google cannot read it. Without a screen lock the key is not put in that backup, though a direct transfer from the old phone during setup can still carry it. There is no recovery code. If you lose every phone that had the key and no backup carried it, nobody can open the Drive copy again, including us, and a new phone starts a copy of its own.
Choose where your diary syncs. The Sync section of Settings shows your own cloud and BearingKind Sync, with a tick on the one in use. Tapping the other one moves your diary there, and you can keep recording while it moves. If your iCloud or Google account already holds another copy of your diary when you move it back, the app asks before replacing it, and deletes the other copy two weeks later. The iCloud copy has no switch in the app. iOS has one, in the Settings app under your Apple Account.
Share your diary. Your diary has to be on BearingKind Sync first. Then "Invite caregiver or viewer", in the Sharing section below it, creates a link. Whoever opens the link first gets in, so send it somewhere only the right person will see it. A link works once and for 30 days, and you can cancel it sooner. Before you create it, choose whether the person sees all of your children's profiles or only some. "Change profiles", in the list of people in the diary, changes that after they join.
Remove someone, or leave. The owner removes people from the list of people in the diary. Anyone else can leave a diary they joined. Either way the diary is deleted from that person's phone the next time it connects.
Erase a child's history. In the child's settings, use "Erase sleep history". It erases that child's sleeps and notes, a sleep in progress included, from this phone at once. The child's profile and settings stay. Your other devices, the people you share the diary with, and the copy in iCloud, Google Drive or BearingKind Sync follow when each phone next connects. Only the diary's owner can erase. "Delete child profile" erases the same history and removes the profile too. To delete everything, use Full reset, below.
What erasing does not reach:
- Backup files you exported before are not changed.
- A sleep moved to this child on another phone, which your phone had not received when you erased, can survive.
- A phone whose clock is far off can keep a record made just before the erase, or lose one made just after it.
- Our server keeps a point-in-time recovery copy of its database for 30 days, and a backup copy of its archive for at most 30 days. Both hold the records still encrypted.
- Google Drive files written by a phone that never opens the app again keep that phone's copy of the history.
- When the diary moved to BearingKind Sync, or the phone changed its Apple or Google account, the copy left in iCloud or Google Drive keeps the history as it was then.
Delete everything. Use "Full reset" at the bottom of Settings, and use it before you delete the app. It erases your diary and every diary you joined from the phone, deletes your diary and your sync account on our server, and deletes the app's copy in your iCloud or Google Drive. It works offline and finishes the server part when the phone is next online. It does not erase your other devices and it does not cancel a subscription. On a phone that shows your diary read-only because another phone records it, it erases only that phone, and the diary stays on the phone that records it. Export a backup file first if you want to keep anything.
If you already deleted the app, remove its data from iCloud through the iOS Settings app under your Apple Account, or from Google Drive in Drive's settings, in the list of apps that have stored data there. An encrypted copy on BearingKind Sync is then deleted on the schedule that follows the end of the subscription. We cannot delete it for you, because the service does not know which account is yours.
One loose end on Android, worth knowing rather than worrying about: the Drive key stays in Google Block Store, and in your phone's Google backup, after Full reset and after the app is deleted. Full reset keeps it on purpose, so that another phone on the same Google account can turn its copy back on. Once the app's data is gone from Drive, that key opens nothing.
Cancel a subscription. The subscription pays for BearingKind Sync. Subscriptions are managed by the store, not by us. On iPhone, open the Settings app, tap your name, then Subscriptions. On Android, open Google Play, tap your profile picture, then Payments and subscriptions. We cannot cancel or refund on your behalf, though we will help you ask. After a subscription ends everything keeps working for 14 days, except that you cannot send new invitations. Then the people you invited are removed and your diary goes back to your own iCloud or Google Drive, or stays on your phone.
Reporting a problem
When the app crashes or hits an error, it tells us automatically. The report says what the code was doing, never who you are or what you recorded. The Privacy Policy lists what it holds. The app has no analytics. A crash report tells us that something broke, not what you were trying to do, so what you write still helps most.
On Android the equivalent is Google Play, which shows us aggregate installation figures and reports crashes and freezes from phones whose owners have left Usage and diagnostics switched on. Same shape, same limits: it tells us the app stopped working, never what you were trying to do.
So the more of this you can include, the better:
- What you did, step by step, and what you expected instead.
- What you saw. A screenshot or screen recording is worth several paragraphs. Blur anything you would rather not send.
- Whether it happens every time or happened once.
- Your phone model and OS version, and the app version and build number.
- Where your diary syncs, which the Sync section of Settings shows, and whether the diary is shared with anyone.
If we need more, we may ask for a diagnostics summary from the app. Read this before sending files: a diagnostics summary describes sync outcomes; a full backup file contains your child's name, date of birth, and every record and note you have written, in readable text. Sending either is your choice. We will explain why we are asking. You can decline and we will still try to help. We delete whatever you send once the issue is closed. Section 8 of the Privacy Policy sets that out in full.
Data recovery
We hold no readable copy of your records and cannot restore them. Recovery is what you keep yourself: the records on your device, the copy in your own iCloud, and the backup files you export. Export regularly; a backup file is the one copy whose fate is entirely in your hands.
The Android Google Drive copy is a fourth copy, with one condition attached. It can be opened only with its key: on a phone already using the copy, on a phone set up from a Google backup that carried the key, or on a phone that scanned the code your old phone showed.
BearingKind Sync is not a backup we can open. Its copy is encrypted with keys that exist only on your devices, and the service does not know who you are. A new phone gets into your sync account through the recovery material the app saves in your own iCloud or Drive, or through a code shown by the old phone. If the phone is lost and there is no iCloud or Drive copy of that material, nobody can get the diary back, us included, and you start a new one.
The app is not medical advice
BearingKind Baby Sleep Tracker records and describes. It does not assess, diagnose, or advise. If you are worried about your child's sleep, health, or development, speak to a health professional who knows your child. In an emergency, contact your local emergency services. Section 4 of the Terms of Use says this properly.
Accessibility
We aim to meet WCAG 2.1 AA. If something in the app is hard or impossible to use with VoiceOver or TalkBack, with large text, with reduced motion, or with increased contrast, please tell us. Accessibility reports go to the front of the queue.
Languages
The app is available in English and Russian. These support and policy pages are currently published in English.
Also
Ivan Kuindzhi
Box 69, Nalbandjan 28, 0010 Yerevan\