Privacy

The short version

Sparmin records your spa visit on your watch and saves it to Garmin Connect, exactly like any other activity. That much involves nobody but you and Garmin.

There is also an optional companion web app. If you choose to link your watch to it, each finished session is sent there so you can look at your history in a browser. That is the only thing that leaves your watch, it only happens after you link, and you can stop it at any time.

What is sent, if you link

• When each session started and ended, and your time zone offset.
• How long you spent at each station, how many times you visited it, and its name — “Finnish sauna”, “Ice cave”, and so on.
• Your average, maximum and minimum heart rate for each station. This is health data, which is why linking is a deliberate opt-in rather than something switched on for you.
• An identifier for the watch, and the app version — so a session can be attributed to the right device, and a problem traced to the right release.

What is never sent

• Your location. Sparmin does not record GPS at all, so there is none to send.
• Your name or email address. The watch has no access to them.
• The activity file itself. Not from the watch, and not when you upload one either — a file you drag into the companion is read in your browser, and only the session it describes is sent. The file never leaves your computer.
• Your watch's serial number.

Uploading an export instead

You can also export an activity from Garmin Connect and drop it into the companion, with no watch linked at all. The same applies: the file is read in your browser and only the session it describes — the same times, stations and heart-rate figures listed above — is sent.

Signing in to the companion

The companion needs an email address so it can sign you in, by magic link or passkey. That address is used for signing in and nothing else: no marketing, no newsletters, and it is not shared with anyone.

Where it is kept

On Cloudflare's platform, in a database used only by Sparmin. Email delivery for sign-in links goes through Resend. Nothing is sold, shared or handed to advertisers, and there is no analytics or tracking in the watch app or the companion.

Sparmin is run by Scott Lovegrove as a personal project, not a company. It isopen source, so you can read exactly what it does with your data rather than take this page's word for it.

How long it is kept

Your sessions are kept until you delete them. There is no automatic expiry — a spa history is only useful over years, so deleting it on your behalf would defeat the point.

Deleting it

• One session: delete it from the session list in thecompanion.
• Everything: Settings → Delete account. This removes your account and every session with it, immediately and permanently.
• Stop sending, keep your history: Settings → Watches → Remove. The watch notices, forgets the account and stops sending. What it already sent stays until you delete it.

Deleting your account does not touch Garmin Connect. Your activities live there independently, and Sparmin has never had access to that account.

Your rights

Under UK and EU data protection law you can ask for a copy of your data, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be deleted. The delete route above does the last one immediately and without asking anybody. For the others, write toprivacy@scottlovegrove.co.uk.

The lawful basis for handling heart-rate data is your explicit consent, given by linking a watch, and withdrawn by removing it or deleting your account.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that affects what is collected, the change will appear in the changelog alongside the release that caused it.