Remote-RED

Terms of Use

Provider of this service is Looking4Cache UG (haftungsbeschränkt), in the following “we” or “our”.

This service includes:

  • our end device applications based on Remote-RED, hereinafter “Apps”.
  • our integrations in third-party systems (e.g. in Node-RED and in Home Assistant), hereinafter “Integration”.
  • our server components, hereinafter referred to as “Remote-RED Servers”.
  • our Partner Portal at portal.remote-red.com, hereinafter “Partner Portal”.

The use of our service requires that you agree to these terms of use. Please read them carefully.

General terms

The goal of Remote-RED is the communication of your local environment (Node-RED or Home Assistant) over the internet with our apps.

You may use our service both for personal and for business purposes. For business use, e.g. for customer projects or your own products, we additionally offer our Partner Program with central billing (see section “Partner Program”). With the download of our Integrations or the download of our Apps you do not acquire any copyrights or industrial property rights, unless they are explicitly granted to you by contract.

You are not allowed to use our service in an abusive way. Use our service only within the legally permitted limits and according to these terms of use.

These terms of use do not affect the terms of use of the underlying systems and services (e.g. Node-RED, Home Assistant, Apple AppStore, Google PlayStore).

Partner Program

If you set up remote access for your customers or equip your own Node-RED based projects with our Apps, you can create a Partner account in our Partner Portal for this purpose. The instances of your customers or projects are then billed centrally through your account, and your customers are not offered any in-app purchases in the Apps.

The Partner Program is aimed exclusively at entrepreneurs within the meaning of section 14 of the German Civil Code (§ 14 BGB). By registering in the Partner Portal you confirm that you act as an entrepreneur and use the Partner account for your commercial or self-employed professional activity.

Upon registration you receive a CustomerHash and a CustomerKey. Instances that you set up with them are assigned to your Partner account. Keep the CustomerKey confidential, because all instances created with your credentials are attributed to your account.

Billing takes place through your Partner account based on actual usage. Only instances that have actually been connected to an App are charged, at the prices shown in your Partner account and for the functions booked by you, either monthly or yearly at your choice. For returned SEPA direct debits for which you are responsible (e.g. insufficient funds, unjustified revocation or incorrect account details), we will pass on to you the third-party costs actually incurred by us. If you fail to meet your payment obligations despite a reminder, we may deactivate the booked functions and block the instances assigned to your account.

These terms of use also apply to the users of your instances, e.g. your customers or employees. You ensure that they know and comply with these terms of use, in particular the notes on security and the limits on data volume and bandwidth.

Within the Partner Program we provide support exclusively to you as the partner. We do not provide direct support to your customers or other end users; you answer their inquiries yourself.

Security

The Integrations of Remote-RED opens one or more SSH tunnels (port forwarding) between your local network and our Remote-RED servers. The communication of our apps with the Remote-RED servers to access these tunnels is encrypted and protected by a client certificate. Although we strive to achieve a high level of security, you should be aware that this creates one or more tunnels in your network, which is a potential security risk.

Therefore, you should protect important resources with a password or an additional authentication method. Also you should not make critical systems accessible (e.g. access systems / door opening as well as cameras and microphones). The publication is at your own risk.

Local requirements

To work, the Integrations of Remote-RED must establish HTTPS and SSH connections to its own Remote-RED servers (*.remote-red.com). If you use a firewall or other security systems, they must allow communication with the Remote-RED servers. The local system (e.g. Node-RED, Home Assistant) must have the right to start the SSH process on the underlying operating system. The SSH command must be available.

To use our service you do not need a static IP address and do not need port forwarding from your router to your local server, because the communication is established from your local server to our servers.

Transferable websites

The remote access function makes a local website accessible through our apps. For this to work, this website must meet several conditions. The function to transfer additional websites is only possible in conjunction with the integration for Node-RED.

A port of one of your local IP addresses or local hostnames will be forwarded via SSH, e.g. at the Node-RED Dashboard “localhost:1880”. The apps can then access this port under another address, e.g. “https://proxy.node-red.com:443”.

The website will not work if it uses absolute paths (e.g. “http://192.168.1.40/images/logo.png” instead of “/images/logo.png”) or if it uses multiple ports (e.g. the website outputs via HTTP / port 80 and loads additional local resources via HTTPS / 443). It must also be a web page that can be displayed in the device’s browser (e.g. Safari) (e.g. a network drive will not work directly).

We tested our service with the UI Dashboard (node-red-dashboard) and Dashboard 2 (@flowfuse/node-red-dashboard) from Node-RED as well as the Home Assistant interface. Other sites may work, but we do not guarantee and do not provide support for them.

Data volume and bandwidth

Our service is designed for the transmission of web pages to control and configure smart home devices, systems and machinery. These are usually websites that transmit only small amounts of data and use low bandwidth. This is done, for example, by loading a static web page and executing actions and updating the status via a REST API.

Our service is not designed to transmit large amounts of data and is not designed to provide high bandwidth. Therefore, services such as file transfer and video streams can only be used with restrictions. E.g. a short, sporadic check of the surveillance camera at home is fine (please think about security and your privacy), but the permanent transmission of one or more live streams is not.

As a limit we set 1 GB / month as data volume and 1 Mbit / second for continuous data transfers (e.g. video streams). These limits apply per instance, including instances that are billed through a Partner account. Therefore we reserve the right to limit high data volumes or to throttle high bandwidths. Short-term peaks (e.g. during the initial loading of a web page) are of course not throttled.

Liability

We strive for high availability and reliability of our service, but do not owe any specific minimum availability. Maintenance work, further development or malfunctions may lead to temporary interruptions. We do not warrant that our service is suitable for your specific purposes.

Our service is not intended for safety-critical applications. It must not be used as the sole or primary channel for functions whose failure may lead to personal injury, property damage or significant financial loss (e.g. emergency stop, alerting, monitoring of safety-relevant conditions). Safety functions must work locally and independently of our service.

Any liability is excluded, unless liability is mandatory under the German Product Liability Act (Produkthaftungsgesetz), due to intent, gross negligence, injury to life, body or health, due to the assumption of a quality guarantee, due to fraudulent concealment of a defect or due to the violation of essential contractual obligations. Essential contractual obligations are such obligations, the fulfilment of which makes the proper execution of a contract possible in the first place and on the observance of which the contracting parties may regularly rely. Compensation for damages due to the violation of essential contractual obligations is limited to the foreseeable damage typical for this type of contract, unless there is intent or gross negligence.

In the event of data loss, we are only liable for the damage that would also have occurred if you had carried out proper and regular data backups.

Governing law and place of jurisdiction

These terms of use are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). If you are a consumer, the mandatory consumer protection provisions of the country in which you have your habitual residence remain unaffected by this choice of law.

If you are a merchant, a legal entity under public law or a special fund under public law, or if you have no general place of jurisdiction in Germany, the exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from or in connection with these terms of use is our registered office. In this case we are also entitled to bring action at your place of business. For consumers, the statutory places of jurisdiction apply.

Contract languages

Contract languages are English and German.