Smug - terms of use

1. Who we are

We are Midsummer Energy Ltd (‘Midsummer’), a company registered in England and Wales (company number: 07427197), whose registered office address is at Midsummer Energy Ltd, Cambridge Road Industrial Estate, Milton, United Kingdom, CB24 6AZ.

Smug is a mobile and web application provided by Midsummer that allows you to monitor and optimise your home energy use.

2. What this contract does

We license you to use:

The Smug mobile application and web application, the data supplied with the application (together the App, or Smug) and any updates or supplements to it; and
the home energy optimisation services you connect to via the App and the content and control we provide to you through it (the Services),

as permitted in these terms.

These terms apply from the date that you download the App, until the date that you cease to use the App and Services (subject to a few exceptions as set out below).

3. Your privacy

Under data protection legislation, we are required to provide you with certain information including who we are, how we process your personal data and for what purposes, and your rights in relation to your personal data and how to exercise them. This information is provided in our Privacy Policy and it is important that you read that information.

It is a condition of the use of the App and Services that we have the right to use any personal data that you input into the App.

4. Other terms that may apply to you

The ways in which you can use the App may also be controlled by the rules and policies of the app store through which the App was downloaded.

5. Home Energy System requirements

To use the App and access the Services, you must own, lease or otherwise have access to appropriate hardware, including solar panels, batteries, heat pumps and EVs that are supported by us (your Home Energy System). You must also have a valid contract with an energy retailer.

By adding elements of your Home Energy System to the App, you confirm that you are the owner or leaseholder of such elements of the Home Energy System or that you otherwise have the right to access data about the Home Energy System and control the relevant aspects of it.

By adding your Home Energy System to the App, you agree that Smug can connect to your Home Energy System and that we can read information from your Home Energy System and send commands to your Home Energy System, to enable us to control certain aspects of your Home Energy System.

Our access to your Home Energy System can be revoked at any time by using the App to unlink your Home Energy System.

In no circumstances shall we have any responsibility or liability in relation to the hardware or OEM software making up your Home Energy System, or any problems with these elements. If any element of your Home Energy System develops a fault or does not function as you expect, you should contact the installer, supplier or manufacturer (as appropriate).

6. Operating system requirements

You are responsible for ensuring that you have adequate hardware and software to run the App as intended.

7. Limitations of the App and Services

As we are making use of 3rd party hardware and systems (e.g. your solar panels, battery, EV and charge point and the relevant manufacturer’s IT systems), we cannot guarantee that the same functionality will be available for all Home Energy Systems nor that the Services will be available 100% of the time and error free.

Any costs displayed in the App should be considered an estimate and will not be used to calculate your energy bills. The App is only able to obtain, and link to, tariff information from certain energy suppliers. Whilst you can still use the App regardless of your energy supplier, you will not have full access to all features if your energy supplier and/or electricity tariff is not supported.

While we will make every effort to ensure that your Home Energy System is managed according to the settings you select in the App, we accept no responsibility if your Home Energy System does not function as you expect, including if you have insufficient battery capacity when you need it, or if your battery is not discharged and recharged as you expect, or if your battery lifespan or degradation is affected by use of the Services.

8. Support for the App and how to tell us about problems

If you want to learn more about the App or the Services or have any problems using them, please take a look at our support resources within the App (the Documentation) or on our website at smug.energy.

If you think the App or the Services are faulty or misdescribed or wish to contact us for any other reason please contact our customer services team at hello@smug.energy.

If we have to contact you we will do so by email, telephone or SMS, using the contact details you have provided to us.

9. How you may use the App

In return for your agreeing to comply with these terms you may:

download a copy of the App onto one or more mobile devices and view, use and display the App and the Services on such devices for your personal purposes only;
use any Documentation to support your permitted use of the App and the Services;
provided you comply with the licence restrictions set out in section 17 (Licence and acceptable use restrictions) below, make a limited number of copies of the App as part of automated back-up purposes; and
receive and use any free supplementary software code or update of the App incorporating "patches" and corrections of errors as we may provide to you.

10. Fees

You may download and use many of the features of the App for free. However, some features, in particular optimisation of your battery system, do require a monthly subscription.

11. Age restrictions

You must be 18 or over to accept these terms and use the App.

12. You may not transfer the App to someone else

We are giving you personally the right to use the App and the Services as set out in section 9 (How you may use the App) above. You may not otherwise transfer the App or the Services to someone else, whether for money, for anything else or for free. If you sell any device on which the App is installed, you must remove the App from it.

13. Changes to these terms

We may need to change these terms to reflect changes in law or best practice, where it’s necessary for our business to make a change to these terms, or to deal with additional features which we introduce.

We will notify you of any changes to these terms when you next start the App, and you will be required to accept the revised terms in order to continue to use the App.

14. Update to the App and changes to the Services

From time to time we may automatically update the App and change the Services to improve performance, enhance functionality, reflect changes to the operating system or address security issues. Alternatively we may ask you to update the App for these reasons.

If you choose not to install such updates or if you opt out of automatic updates you may not be able to continue using the App and the Services.

Until you are notified otherwise, the App will work with the current version of the operating system on your device (as it may be updated from time to time).

15. If someone else owns the phone or device you are using

If you download the App onto any device not owned by you, you must have the owner’s permission to do so. You will be responsible for complying with these terms, whether or not you own the device on which it is installed.

16. We are not responsible for the content of other websites

The App or any Services may contain links to other independent websites which are not provided by us. Such independent sites are not under our control, and we are not responsible for and have not checked and approved their content or their privacy policies (if any).

17. Licence and acceptable use restrictions

You agree that you will:

not rent, lease, sub-license, loan, provide, or otherwise make available, the App or the Services in any form, in whole or in part to any person;
not copy the App, Documentation or Services, except as part of the normal use of the App or where it is necessary for the purpose of back-up or operational security;
not translate, merge, adapt, vary, alter or modify, the whole or any part of the App, Documentation or Services nor permit the App or the Services or any part of them to be combined with, or become incorporated in, any other programs, except as necessary to use the App and the Services on devices as permitted in these terms;
not disassemble, de-compile, reverse engineer or create derivative works based on the whole or any part of the App or the Services nor attempt to do any such things, except to the extent permitted by law.

You agree that you will not:

allow others to use the App via your exclusive permitted access (e.g. using your email address and account);
use the App, its components, or its output in any way that may infringe our intellectual property rights or any other proprietary rights of us or of any third party;
remove or alter any markings that indicate ownership of the App or of its output, for example, trademark or copyright symbols;
input any parties’ personal data or other private information into the App, or use any of the App’s output that contains such, except in accordance with UK Data Protection Laws and with these terms;
attempt to reverse engineer or otherwise access or use the App or its components in order to set up or contribute to an endeavour that may compete with our App, whether such an endeavour is commercial or not (e.g. by using aspects of the App as part of the development of your own software product);
collect or harvest any information or data from any Services or our systems or attempt to decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running any Services
use the App to construct any kind of database or to conduct automated or systemic data scraping, data mining, data extraction, or similar data collection activities;
negligently or intentionally input content into the App that introduces any virus, worm, cancelbot, trojan horse, or other destructive or contaminating code or programme;
attempt to damage, interfere with, slow, or otherwise alter the App, its performance, or its integrity;
use the App or any Services in a way that could damage, disable, overburden, impair or compromise our systems or security or interfere with other users;
use the App for any commercial purposes, including using the App’s output to provide information, advice, or other Services to a commercial client;
use output generated using the App to sell, lend, or otherwise commercially exploit, as a product of or as part of a product of your own business;
use output generated using the App to inform research or analysis or to make decisions other than those limited to your own Home Energy System;
rely on the App’s output as being factually accurate, up-to-date, or complete;
input information into the App or use the App in a manner that breaches any applicable laws, regulations, or other rules;
input information into the App or use the App in a manner that is defamatory, offensive, unlawful, immoral, tortuous, fraudulent, harmful, or deceptive; or
use the App to manage a Home Energy System outside of the UK.

18. Feedback

We welcome feedback (including suggestions, enhancement requests and comments) from users of the App and Services. Subject to the terms of the our Privacy Policy, by using the App you agree that:

We may contact you for the purpose of obtaining feedback on the Services, and proposing opportunities to test new features, including by way of App pop-ups and email;
We may use such feedback for internal business purposes and for developing the App and Services;
Any intellectual property rights arising from or otherwise relating to the feedback will become our intellectual property and you grant us all rights necessary to make use of such feedback as we see fit; and
You shall not be entitled to receive any payment, compensation or further acknowledgement of any kind for giving such feedback.

19. Intellectual property rights

All intellectual property rights in the App, the Documentation and the Services throughout the world belong to us and the rights in the App and the Services are licensed (not sold) to you. Other than as set out below, you have no intellectual property rights in, or to, the App, the Documentation or the Services other than the right to use them in accordance with these terms.

You shall retain all rights, title and interest in any data that you input into the App or that is otherwise obtained from your Home Energy System (User Data).

You hereby grant us a royalty-free, worldwide, transferable, irrevocable, perpetual licence to your User Data, under which we may use such data when anonymised and aggregated with other users’ data to improve the Services (e.g. by incorporating the data into the Services or by using it to contribute to training the underlying AI model(s)).

20. Our responsibility for loss or damage suffered by you

We are only responsible to you for foreseeable loss and damage caused by us. If we fail to comply with these terms, we are responsible for direct loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these terms or our failing to use reasonable care and skill and we are not responsible for any loss or damage that is indirect or not foreseeable. Loss or damage is foreseeable if either it is obvious that it will happen or if, at the time you accepted these terms, both we and you knew it might happen.

We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors or for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

We are not liable for any problems with your hardware or third party software relating to your Home Energy System. If any element of your Home Energy System develops a fault or does not function as you expect, you should contact the installer, supplier or manufacturer (as appropriate).

When we are liable for damage to your property. If defective digital content that we have supplied damages a device or digital content belonging to you, we will either repair the damage or pay you compensation. However, we will not be liable for damage that you could have avoided by following our advice to apply an update offered to you free of charge or for damage that was caused by you failing to correctly follow installation instructions or to have in place the minimum system requirements advised by us.

We are not liable for business losses. The App is for domestic and private use. If you use the App for any commercial, business or resale purpose, in addition to being a breach of the terms set out above, we will have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.

The App and the Services are provided for general information purposes in relation to your Home Energy System only. The App and the Services do not provide outputs or advice on which you should rely. Although we make reasonable efforts to ensure that the outputs and information provided by the App and Services are correct, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that such output or information is accurate, complete or up to date.

We are not responsible for events outside our control. If our provision of the Services or support for the App or the Services is affected or delayed by an event outside our control then we will take reasonable steps to fix any such issue and minimise its effects.

21. When your rights to use the App and the Services may end

We may end your rights to use the App and Services, and terminate this contract between us, at any time in our absolute discretion including but not limited to if you have broken these terms in a serious way. If what you have done can be put right, we will give you a reasonable opportunity to do so.

We will use our reasonable endeavours to notify you if we have terminated your right to use the App and the Services and give you the reason for doing so.

If we end your rights to use the App and Services:

You must stop all activities authorised by these terms, including your use of the App and any Services.
You must delete or remove the App from all devices in your possession.

You may end your use of the App and the Services at any time, and terminate this contract between us, by deleting or removing the App from all devices in your possession, or otherwise notifying us in writing that you wish to terminate the Services.

Any terms that by their nature must survive the termination of this contract (such as those covering licence and acceptable use, intellectual property rights and our responsibility for loss or damage suffered by you) shall remain effective after termination of your right to use the App and Services.

22. We may transfer this contract to someone else

We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation. We will always tell you in writing if this happens and we will ensure that the transfer will not affect your rights under these terms.

23. You need our consent to transfer your rights to someone else

You may only transfer your rights or your obligations under these terms to another person if we agree in writing.

24. No rights for third parties

This contract does not give rise to any rights under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 for a third party to enforce any of these terms.

25. If a court finds part of this contract illegal, the rest will continue in force

Each of the paragraphs of each section of these terms operates separately. If any court or relevant authority decides that any of them are unlawful, the remaining paragraphs will remain in full force and effect.

26. Even if we delay in enforcing this contract, we can still enforce it later

Even if we delay in enforcing any of our rights under these terms, we can still enforce them later. If we do not insist immediately that you do anything you are required to do under these terms, or if we delay in taking steps against you in respect of your breaking these terms, that will not mean that you do not have to do those things and it will not prevent us taking steps against you at a later date.

27. Which laws apply to terms and where you may bring legal proceedings

These terms are governed by English law and you can bring legal proceedings in respect of the App and Services in the English courts. If you live in Scotland you can bring legal proceedings in respect of the App and Services in either the Scottish or the English courts. If you live in Northern Ireland you can bring legal proceedings in respect of the App and Services in either the Northern Irish or the English courts.

28. Contact us

If you have any questions or concerns about these terms, please send us an email at hello@smug.energy.