Privacy
What Action Center and this site collect
The short version: no ads, no analytics, no telemetry and no crash reporting, in the app or on this website. The details are below, and the full version is in the repository.
This website
- No analytics, no cookies, no tracking pixels and no advertising.
- No JavaScript, and no fonts or images from anyone else: everything comes from this site.
- It's hosted on GitHub Pages. GitHub logs visitors' IP addresses for security, as its Pages documentation says, under the GitHub Privacy Statement.
- Search engines' own tools tell the project which searches showed the site and how often it was clicked. That data is about searches, not about you.
What leaves your TV
There's no analytics, telemetry, crash reporting or advertising. The app talks only to:
| Service | When | What it sends |
|---|---|---|
| Your Plex Media Server | Always, once linked | Library sync, artwork and playback. A guide program watched to its credits is marked watched; Settings › Plex turns that off. |
| plex.tv | Sign-in, finding your server, Plex Home users | Your Plex token |
| Plex's catalog | When you search | The words you search for, with your token |
| Open-Meteo | Every 30 minutes, for the weather | The name you type when choosing a city, then that city's coordinates |
| ESPN | Only once you turn the NFL on | Nothing about you: public scoreboard requests |
| Your guide station | Only once paired | The guide, your edits and favorites, over mutual TLS on your network |
| Anthropic (Claude API) | Only with AI blurbs on, at most once a night | About 30 picks: title, year, genres, rating, length and the pick's reason. No Plex keys, server or account names, or watch dates |
| GitHub | Once a day unless Updates is Off in Settings › About, and when you press Check for updates | A request for the latest release's small update file; the app itself when you press Install, or as soon as there's one with Install automatically on. GitHub sees the TV's IP address, as with any download, and counts each release file's downloads publicly: that count is the only number the project sees |
| Other apps on the TV | When you open them | An Android intent: a package name, sometimes a title link |
What's kept on the TV
- Your Plex sign-ins (and a Claude API key, if you add one) are sealed with AES-256-GCM, with a key made in the Android Keystore that never leaves it.
- Your library cache, the guide, profiles, suggestions and app usage counts are in the app's private storage, which other apps can't read.
- App backup is off, so none of it goes to a Google backup. Uninstalling the app deletes all of it.
Permissions
| Permission | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Internet and network state | Plex and the weather; the phone editor's address |
| Usage access | Ordering the Apps row by what you open, and when |
| TV listings | Reading Android TV's Watch Next, for Continue in your apps |
| Photos and videos (storage) | Your own wallpapers and app banners |
| Install unknown apps | Installing Action Center's own updates, and nothing else |
Each one except the network is optional, and each can be revoked.
HomeWatch, the accessibility service
HomeWatch is optional and off until you turn it on. It's for TVs whose own launcher has to stay on, such as Google TV. Android warns that an accessibility service can see what's on screen and the keys you press. HomeWatch asks only for window changes and key events, so it can catch the Home button. It doesn't log, store or send any of it.
What you're trusting
- A sideloaded app as your Home. It isn't reviewed by the Play Store. Install APKs only from the project's releases, or build them yourself. Releases are signed, and Android refuses an update signed with a different key.
- Network debugging. The helper scripts, and recovery if the app ever misbehaves, use Android's network debugging. Anyone who can reach the TV's port 5555 and whose computer you've allowed can control the TV, so keep your home network private, and turn network debugging off when you don't need it. Leaving it on is a recovery choice: it's how you'd undo a broken Home without a USB port.
- Plex. Action Center signs in to plex.tv as a Plex app named “Action Center”, and uses Plex's own APIs.
To report a security problem, see SECURITY.md.