Terms

Your own alarm in Athena is always free. Sharing mornings with a circle runs on our servers, so it needs a small subscription, Athena Connect. This page explains, plainly, how that works.

About these terms

Athena is made by Johan Tidemann Esbjug, an independent developer (“we”, “us”). You can reach us at j.tidemann@me.com.

The app itself is licensed to you under Apple’s standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement. These terms add what’s specific to Athena: the Athena Connect plans, and making an alarm sound of your own. How we handle your data is in the privacy policy.

What a plan covers

• One plan covers up to 3 circles and 12 people, whatever phone they use. Each person in each covered circle counts once, so someone who is in two of your circles counts twice.
• Anyone in a circle can pay for it. It only takes one. Several people can cover the same circle; it stays on while any of their plans is live.
• When a circle is covered, wake-up alerts, “needs attention” alerts, updates, the feed, reactions and widgets work between everyone’s phones.
• When a circle isn’t covered (no plan and no free week), it pauses: those alerts and updates between phones stop. Everyone’s own alarm keeps ringing. The circle and its people stay, and it comes back as soon as someone covers it.
• A plan never stops covering a circle because more people joined it. If every plan covering a circle is full, a new person can join it during the free week, or when their own plan has room to cover it.
• A plan can’t be shared through Apple’s Family Sharing: it covers people through circles instead.
• On a child’s phone there are no prices or purchase screens. A grown-up in the circle can pay from their own phone.

The free week

Every new circle is free for its first week together, starting when the first person joins (one free week per phone). Nothing is charged when it ends; the circle pauses unless someone in it subscribes.

The free week is given by Athena itself, not by the App Store: no payment details are asked for and no subscription starts. The app shows its end date on the circle and reminds you before it ends.

Price, payment and renewal

• Athena Connect is sold monthly and yearly in the App Store. The app shows the price, in your currency, before you buy.
• Apple takes the payment and charges your Apple Account. Your plan starts, and covers your circles, straight away.
• A plan renews automatically at the end of each month or year until you cancel it. Apple charges the renewal within the 24 hours before the period ends.
• If the price ever changes, Apple tells you before it applies, under the App Store’s rules, and asks for your agreement where those rules require it.

Cancelling and refunds

• You can cancel at any time: on your iPhone, open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions › Athena Connect › Cancel Subscription. In Athena, Settings › Plan › Manage or cancel takes you there too.
• After you cancel, your plan keeps working at least until the end of the period you’ve paid for, and then stops renewing.
• Deleting your data in Athena, or deleting the app, doesn’t cancel billing. Only cancelling the subscription does.
• Apple handles refunds under its own rules; you can ask at reportaproblem.apple.com. When a payment is refunded, the plan ends, and the app shows when updates for its circles stop.

If a payment fails

If a renewal payment doesn’t go through, Apple tries again for a while. Your circles keep working in the meantime, and the app shows the date updates would stop, so there’s time to update your payment details, or for someone else in the circle to step in. If Apple can’t take the payment in the end, the plan stops, and circles it covered pause unless someone else covers them.

Moving a plan

• Stopping covering a circle, or leaving it, keeps updates going for up to 7 days, never longer than your plan covered it, so the others have time to decide. At most 3 such moves count in 30 days; after that, the app may ask you to wait before you stop covering another circle, and leaving a circle ends its updates without the extra days.
• A plan can move between Athena accounts at most 3 times in 30 days, for example to a new phone set up from scratch (use Restore purchases). Restoring it to your own account doesn’t count. If the plan is linked to someone else’s Athena, the app asks before moving it.

Free access

If you can’t pay, and Athena gives you and your loved ones some calm, write to j.tidemann@me.com. On iPhone we send an App Store code for a free year that doesn’t renew by itself and is never charged. You redeem it in Apple’s own screen (Settings › Plan › Redeem a code). It covers your circles like any plan.

What we can and can’t promise

Athena is a gentle morning check-in. It isn’t an emergency, medical or call-for-help service, and it never contacts anyone outside your circle, or the emergency services.

We work hard to make alerts reliable, but they depend on things outside our control: phones and their settings, batteries and connections, Apple’s and Google’s notification services, and our own servers. An alert can be late, or not arrive at all. We provide Athena as it is, and we can’t guarantee that every alert will arrive, or arrive on time. If someone’s health or safety depends on being checked on, please don’t rely on Athena alone.

Nothing in these terms takes away rights you have under the consumer law where you live.

Changes

If we change these terms, we’ll update this page and, for bigger changes, tell you in the app first. We won’t lower the limits of a plan for people who already subscribe. A price change always goes through Apple, as described above.

Your own alarm sound

1. What it does. You can make your alarm sound from a short part (under 30 seconds) of a video or sound file on your phone (“your sound”). Athena makes it on your phone, following your choices.

2. It stays on your phone. Your sound is never sent to us or to anyone in your circle. We don’t receive, store, review, host or share it, and it isn’t included in your phone’s backups. Because it never leaves your phone, you don’t give us any licence or permission to use it, and we claim no rights in it. Deleting your data in Athena, or deleting the app, removes it.

3. What you may use. Only use videos and sounds you’re allowed to use, such as ones you filmed or recorded yourself. That’s your responsibility. Music, films and other media are usually protected by copyright. We don’t give you permission to use anyone else’s material, and you must not use Athena to infringe anyone’s rights.

4. Copy-protected files. Athena can’t use copy-protected files and doesn’t try to get round copy protection. Don’t get round it yourself to use Athena.

5. It may not play. Your sound may not play, may be too quiet, or may stop working, for example after a system update or when you restore or replace your phone. If your sound can’t be played, a standard alarm sound normally plays instead. We can’t promise that your sound will always play or wake you. Try your sound before you rely on it, try it again after a system update, and keep your phone’s volume up. If a missed alarm could affect anyone’s health or safety, the standard sound is the safer choice. Very loud sounds can harm your hearing.

6. Children. On a child’s phone, the child can choose their own sound without a grown-up. The grown-ups in the circle don’t see or hear it: it stays on the child’s phone and isn’t shared with anyone. If you set up Athena for a child, it’s worth talking with them about which sounds they’re allowed to use.

Contact

Questions about a plan, the free week or these terms? Write to j.tidemann@me.com, and include your Support ID from Settings › Plan if it’s about your plan. More answers are on the Help page.

Version of 26 September 2026.