Terms and Conditions

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These terms are the agreement between you and the person who runs Brainmute. They tell you what Brainmute does, what it cannot promise, what a subscription costs you and how to end it. Please read them before you start. If you do not agree with them, do not use Brainmute.

1. Who you are dealing with

In these terms, we and us mean Luis Kleemann, and you mean the person using Brainmute. The terms cover the Brainmute Android app, the website brainmute.app and any account you create with us.

How we handle personal data is not in this document. That is explained in our Privacy Policy.

These terms are written in English. The German page is a translation, provided so that German speakers can read the same content in their own language.

2. Who can use Brainmute

• You need to be 13 or older.
• If you are under 18, a parent or legal guardian has to agree to these terms and to any purchase before you use Brainmute. The app asks for your age, but it has no way of checking it, so this is on you and on your guardian.
• One person, one account. Please give correct details when you sign up.

3. Your account

You sign up with an email address and a password. Keep the password to yourself. Anything that happens through your account is treated as done by you, so tell us at [email protected] as soon as you suspect that somebody else has got in.

You pick a display name that other users can see. It must not be offensive, must not pretend to be someone else, and must not use a name or trademark you have no right to. If a display name breaks this rule, we may change or remove it.

You can delete your account at any time, free of charge. How to do it is explained on Delete your account.

4. What Brainmute does

Brainmute is an app that helps you spend less time on your phone.

• You choose which apps to lock. When you open a locked app, Brainmute shows its own lock screen and sends you back to your home screen.
• You earn unlocked time by finishing missions, for example reading, meditating, walking, a workout or a block of focused work.
• A sleep window locks your phone between the two times you set.
• If you switch them on, you can also add friends, join challenges, appear on leaderboards and see a report of your screen time.

For this, Brainmute needs several Android permissions. Each one is explained in the app before you switch it on, and you can take any of them away again in your Android settings at any time. If you do, the parts of the app that depend on them stop working.

What is never locked

Your phone has to stay usable and emergency calls always have to work. These stay open at all times, whether your app lock, a mission or your sleep window is running: emergency calls, phone and contacts, your alarm clock, Android settings, permissions and uninstalling, the lock screen, status bar and fingerprint unlock, official emergency alerts and emergency SOS, your camera, your keyboard, your home screen, and Brainmute itself.

5. What Brainmute cannot promise

Brainmute is a self-control tool. It is not a security product, not parental control software and not a way to stop somebody else from using their phone.

Android limits what any app is allowed to do, and phone makers stop background apps in their own ways. Because of that:

• We cannot promise that a lock always starts on time, always holds, or that a locked app can never be reached.
• Anyone who can unlock your phone can uninstall Brainmute or take a permission away.
• Screen time numbers come from Android and can be incomplete.
• We do not promise that the app is free of faults or available without interruption.

None of this affects the rights you have by law if the app is faulty.

6. Health and safety

Brainmute is not medical, psychological or therapeutic advice. It does not diagnose, treat or prevent anything. If you are worried about your sleep, your mood or your phone use, please talk to a doctor.

Some missions and challenges involve physical activity, for example walking, running, swimming, yoga or a workout. Take part only if you are healthy enough for it. Go at your own pace, stop if you feel unwell, and check with a doctor first if you are unsure or have a medical condition.

Never use the app while driving, while cycling or anywhere it would put you or anyone else at risk. Brainmute never blocks emergency calls, but if something serious happens, put the phone to its normal use and get help.

7. Subscription and payment

Brainmute is a paid app. You need an active subscription to use it.

• What it costs, how long the billing period is, and whether there is a free period at the start, is shown in the app and in Google Play before you confirm. Nothing is charged before that.
• The subscription is bought through Google Play and paid with the payment method in your Google account. Google Play takes the payment and renews the subscription automatically at the end of every period, until you cancel.
• Any tax that applies where you live is shown with the price in Google Play before you confirm.
• If the price changes, Google Play tells you in advance and you can cancel before the change takes effect.

Who you are buying from

This depends on where you live. For users in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and a number of other territories, Google is the merchant of record, which means the purchase contract for the subscription is between you and Google. Everywhere else, the purchase contract is between you and us, and Google acts as our agent. The list of those territories is published by Google and is part of the Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement.

8. Cancelling and refunds

• You can cancel at any time in Google Play, under Subscriptions. Cancelling stops the next renewal. Your subscription keeps running until the end of the period you have already paid for.
• Cancelling is not the same as deleting your account, and deleting your account does not cancel the subscription. If you want both, do both, otherwise Google Play keeps charging you.
• Refunds are handled through Google Play under Google's refund rules, and we have agreed that Google may grant refunds on our behalf. We cannot reverse a payment that Google has taken. If something went wrong, write to [email protected] anyway and we will help as far as we can.
• Consumers in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom have a statutory right to withdraw from a purchase of digital content. Where Google is the merchant of record, that right is against Google, and Google Play's terms explain how to use it.

9. Friends, leaderboards and challenges

These parts are optional. They only run if you switch them on, and you can switch them off again.

While they are on, other users can see your display name and, depending on the feature, your level, your streak, your rank and your progress in a running challenge. Do not put anybody else's personal data into your display name.

Be decent to other users. Faking mission results, steps or scores, or working around the rules of a challenge, can cost you your place in it, your score, or your account.

10. Rules of use

Please do not:

• use Brainmute for anything unlawful, or in a way that harms other people;
• get around the paywall or use the app without a valid subscription;
• automate, fake or manipulate missions, steps, scores, streaks or leaderboards;
• copy, sell, rent, lend or sublicense the app or your access to it;
• decompile, disassemble or reverse engineer the app, except where the law expressly allows it;
• try to get into other people's accounts, or collect data from the service in bulk;
• upload harmful code, or attack or overload our systems;
• use Brainmute to lock, monitor or control another person's phone without them knowing and agreeing.

11. Content and rights

For as long as your subscription runs, you get a personal, limited licence to use Brainmute on devices you control. It cannot be transferred to anyone else. Everything else stays with us: the app, its name and logo, its design, its texts and its code.

What you write in the app stays yours. That includes journal entries, mission notes and your display name. You allow us to store and show it as far as we need to in order to run the service, for example to show your display name to your friends.

If you send us feedback or an idea, we may use it to improve Brainmute without owing you anything for it.

12. Changes to the app

We keep working on Brainmute, so features change, get better, and sometimes go away. If a change takes away a substantial part of what you are paying for, you can cancel your subscription, and where the law requires it we will tell you before the change takes effect.

13. Ending this agreement

You can end it at any time: cancel the subscription in Google Play, delete your account in the app settings, and uninstall the app.

We may suspend or close an account that seriously or repeatedly breaks these terms, or where we have to for legal reasons. Where it is reasonable, we tell you first and give you the chance to put it right. If we close your account without a good reason, you get back the share of the fee that covers the time you can no longer use, refunded through Google Play.

14. Liability

We are liable without limitation for damage caused intentionally or by gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, and wherever product liability law applies.

For slight negligence, we are only liable if we break a duty that is essential to this agreement, meaning a duty you have to be able to rely on for the agreement to work at all. In that case our liability is limited to the damage that is foreseeable and typical for an agreement of this kind. Any liability beyond that is excluded.

Nothing in these terms limits rights you have as a consumer that cannot be limited by contract.

15. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms, for example when the app changes or when the law does. If the change is more than editorial, we will tell you in the app or by email at least 30 days before it takes effect, and we will say what is changing. If you do not want the new version, you can cancel before that date. If you keep using Brainmute afterwards, the new version applies.

16. Governing law and disputes

German law applies. If you are a consumer, this does not take away the protection given to you by rules that cannot be set aside by contract in the country you live in, and you can also bring a claim before the courts there.

We are neither obliged nor willing to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

If one part of these terms turns out to be invalid, the rest of them stays in force.

17. Contact

Questions about these terms, about your subscription or about your account go to [email protected]. The full provider details are in our Legal Notice.