Usage Data & Privacy

PolyKybdHost sends a small anonymous report once a day. It exists so we can see which host and firmware versions people are actually running, and whether updates and firmware flashes are working — things that are otherwise invisible to us unless someone writes in to say something broke.

It is on by default and you can turn it off in one click.

There is no popup asking you to decide. We announce it in the release notes instead, so you read it when you download rather than being interrupted afterwards — and PolyKybdHost writes a line into its log on every start saying whether reporting is on.

See exactly what would be sent

You never have to take our word for it. This prints the real report from your own machine, without sending anything:

polyctl telemetry preview

What the report contains

Category	What is sent
Versions	PolyKybdHost version, protocol version
Your system	Operating system and coarse release (e.g. Windows 11), CPU architecture, Python version
Your keyboard	Model name, firmware version, protocol version, hardware revision, font-pack versions — and whether one was connected at all
Counts since the last report	App starts, keyboard connects, connection drops, firmware flashes, font-pack flashes, host updates
A random ID	A random number generated on your machine, so one install counts once per day

The server adds the time it arrived and a two-letter country code derived from the connection, then discards your IP address.

What it never contains

PolyKybdHost can see all of the following while it runs. None of it is collected:

• Window titles and application names. The app reads these constantly to pick the right keycap overlays. They never leave your machine.
• Anything you type. No keystrokes, ever.
• Your location. The adaptive-brightness feature may look up an approximate location for sunrise/sunset; that is never included, and neither is anything from your device’s location services. The only geographic information in the report is the two-letter country code the server derives from your connection (see above) — the same thing any website you visit can tell.
• Your user name, computer name, MAC address, or keyboard serial number.
• File paths, overlay images, or your keymap.

Note

This is enforced in the code, not just by policy: the report is built from a fixed list of fields, and the test suite fails if that list ever changes by accident.

The random ID

The ID is a random number created on your machine the first time PolyKybdHost runs. It is not derived from your hardware, network card, or anything else about you — its only job is to stop one computer being counted five times in a day.

You can see it with polyctl telemetry status. To become a brand-new install, delete the telemetry_install_id line from settings.yaml — a fresh one is generated on the next start. The file lives here:

OS	Path
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\PolyHost\PolyHost\settings.yaml
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/PolyHost/settings.yaml
Linux	~/.config/PolyHost/settings.yaml

A small user base is not a crowd

While only a small number of PolyKybd keyboards exist, “anonymous” means the report carries nothing that identifies you — not that it is lost among thousands of others. We would rather say so than imply otherwise.

Turning it off

Either of these is enough:

• Settings dialog: Settings → Telemetry → Enabled, untick it.
• Command line: polyctl telemetry disable

There is nothing else to clean up: switching it off stops the next report, and no report is ever queued or stored elsewhere.

Other things worth knowing

• A failed send is simply forgotten. If you are offline or our server is down, nothing is retried aggressively and nothing is ever shown to you as an error. It cannot slow the app down or interfere with your keyboard.
• One report per install, not per window. In the usual daemon setup the background daemon sends the report, so restarting the tray app does not produce extra reports.
• Nothing is sent until we are ready. Builds ship with no collector address configured, which disables sending entirely.

Related commands

Command	What it does
polyctl telemetry status	Show whether it is on, the ID, and when the last report went
polyctl telemetry preview	Print the exact report that would be sent
polyctl telemetry enable / disable	Turn it on or off
polyctl telemetry send	Send one now, ignoring the once-a-day limit