HotLoop Terms of Service

HotLoop IoT, Edge, Gateway, Edge Relay, Flow and Cascade. HotLoop LLC.

Last updated: October 19, 2026. Effective: October 19, 2026.

These terms apply to everyone who downloads, installs or uses HotLoop. They explain what you can do with it, what we do for you, and what happens if something goes wrong. By downloading, installing or using HotLoop, or by using our websites, you agree to them. If you accept for an organization, you confirm you can bind it.

1. Who we are

1.1 HotLoop is made by HotLoop LLC, a limited liability company at 1410 Highland Rd #1, Macedonia, OH 44056 (“HotLoop”, “we”, “us”). HotLoop LLC is the only party you contract with.

1.2 “You” means the person or organization that accepts these terms.

1.3 “HotLoop” or “the Software” means HotLoop IoT, HotLoop Edge, HotLoop Gateway, HotLoop Edge Relay, HotLoop Flow and HotLoop Cascade, in every form we distribute: release binaries, container images, Helm charts, Podman Quadlet units, configuration and documentation.

1.4 “Sites” means hotloop.io, docs.hotloop.io, and our GitHub organization, repositories and Discussions.

2. Your authority

2.1 You must be at least 18 and able to enter a binding contract.

2.2 You are responsible for how the Software is used on your equipment and by the people you give access to it. Keep your credentials, API keys and secrets safe, and tell us if you think someone has misused them.

3. The license is the license

3.1 The Software is licensed under the HotLoop Business Source License 1.1, the text of which is LICENSE.md in HotLoop-io/HotLoop-io. That file is the only copy that counts. These terms do not add to it or take from it. If these terms and the license disagree about what you may do with the Software, the license wins.

3.2 In plain words, and subject to the license text: home and lab use is free. Use by accredited schools and educational institutions, nonprofit organizations and government bodies is free too, anywhere. Business use is free when it runs through EmberNET, which is our channel for business use, and a systems integrator may install and operate HotLoop for a customer under either the customer’s EmberNET account or its own. Hosting HotLoop as a service for other people, reselling it, and embedding it in a product you sell are not granted.

3.3 The license applies to each version separately. Each version converts to GPL-3.0 or later four years after that version is first made publicly available. Until then, the license governs it.

3.4 Business use, and the schools, nonprofits and government bodies that are free of it, mean what the license says they mean. If you are not sure which side your use falls on, ask us before you deploy.

4. How you may use the Sites and the Software

4.1 You may use HotLoop only for lawful purposes.

4.2 You may not:

• (a) break any law or regulation, or infringe anyone’s rights;
• (b) use HotLoop or the Sites to spread malware or other harmful code;
• (c) try to get into the Sites, our accounts or other people’s systems without permission;
• (d) disrupt the Sites, GitHub Discussions, or the registries and servers we distribute from;
• (e) overload the Sites or our release channels with scripted or automated requests beyond ordinary use;
• (f) impersonate anyone, or misstate your connection to HotLoop.

4.3 We may remove content from the Sites, and block accounts from our repositories and Discussions, for serious or repeated breach of these terms.

5. No hosting, resale or embedding

5.1 You may not offer HotLoop to third parties as a hosted, managed or software-as-a-service offering, resell, sublicense, rent or lease it, embed it in a product or service you sell, or charge anyone for access to it.

5.2 The license does not grant that right. These terms do not grant it either, and no partner status, integrator relationship, tier or course of dealing gives it to you.

6. How HotLoop is distributed

6.1 We distribute HotLoop through GitHub releases, container images on ghcr.io, Helm charts, Podman Quadlet units, hotloop.io and docs.hotloop.io. Questions and community help are on GitHub Discussions.

6.2 HotLoop runs on your own hardware, in your own cluster or in your own cloud account. We do not host it for you and we do not take custody of your data.

6.3 Images track the :stable tag. Where you turn auto-update on, your own Podman or cluster pulls new images on its own, and a new image that fails its health check is rolled back to the one that was running. You control whether auto-update runs on your equipment. A failed rollback, a bad network or a bad configuration on your side is not something we can see or fix.

6.4 Only the version-tagged releases we publish are releases. A copy from anywhere else, including a build someone else made, comes under the license but is not something we support.

6.5 Source for HotLoop Flow is public at github.com/HotLoop-io/hotloop-flow. Where the source for another product is not published, the license still covers the binaries, images and charts we distribute.

7. Your data and telemetry

7.1 HotLoop does not phone home. It has no license server, no usage reporting, no crash reporting and no update check that contacts us. We do not receive your tags, flows, workflows, credentials or plant data.

7.2 HotLoop connects out only to the places you configure: your devices and servers, and the notification and integration targets you set up, such as ntfy, Discord, Gotify, a webhook or email. Those services have their own terms and privacy practices, and what you send to them is between you and them.

7.3 When you pull images or charts, your runtime contacts the registry that hosts them, and GitHub sees that request under its own privacy practices. The Sites, GitHub and GitHub Discussions each handle visitor data under their own policies.

7.4 You own your data, your flows, workflows, dashboards, configurations and scripts. We claim no ownership of them.

7.5 If a later version ever collects anything from your installation, it will be off until you turn it on, and the release notes and docs will list every field before it ships. This section will change in the same release.

8. Who owns what

8.1 HotLoop is ours. The license gives you the rights it lists, and nothing in these terms transfers ownership of the Software to you.

8.2 Third-party software keeps its own license. Every image carries a NOTICE and a THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES file in /usr/share/doc/ with the credits and license texts. Code in HotLoop Flow that was ported from Node-RED stays under the Apache License, Version 2.0, with its attribution in the file headers and in NOTICE.

8.3 The license does not grant any right in the HotLoop name or logos, except as the license says.

8.4 If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them freely and owe you nothing for them.

9. EmberNET

9.1 EmberNET is the channel business use goes through. It is a separate service with its own terms. Your agreement with EmberNET is between you and EmberNET, and we are not a party to it.

9.2 We do not warrant EmberNET and are not responsible for it.

10. Support

10.1 Community support is on GitHub Discussions, at our discretion and without any promise of response time. For anything else, write to support@hotloop.io.

10.2 Paid support, service levels and rollouts, if you want them, come from a systems integrator you hire, not from these terms.

11. No kill switch

11.1 HotLoop running on equipment you control keeps running. We cannot disable it remotely and will not try. There is no license check in the code to trip.

11.2 Your rights under the license can end if you use HotLoop in breach of it, as the license says. Ending is not enforced by software. It is enforced by the license and the law.

12. Changes

12.1 We may update these terms and publish the new version at hotloop.io/terms. We will give reasonable notice of material changes on the Sites. Minor fixes, like typos, need none.

12.2 If you keep using HotLoop after a change takes effect, you accept it. If you do not agree, stop using it before then. A change to these terms never changes the license text a version was released under.

13. Copyright complaints

13.1 If you believe content on one of the Sites infringes your copyright, send a notice to our designated agent. Include: your contact details; the work you say is infringed; where the material is; a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorized; a statement that your notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the owner or authorized to act for the owner; and your signature.

13.2 Designated agent: Copyright Agent, HotLoop LLC, 1410 Highland Rd #1, Macedonia, OH 44056, support@hotloop.io.

13.3 We may remove or disable access to the material and tell the user who posted it. That user may send a counter-notice to the same agent. We may close the accounts of repeat infringers.

14. Disclaimers

14.1 HotLoop is provided “as is” and “as available”. We disclaim all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement. We do not promise HotLoop will be uninterrupted or error-free. The license has its own disclaimer, and it applies as well.

14.2 Features we label beta, preview or early access may change or end without notice.

14.3 Anything HotLoop reads from or writes to your equipment is your configuration. Test every automation, alarm, write and workflow on non-critical equipment first.

15. HotLoop is not a safety system

15.1 HotLoop is not a safety system. Do not rely on it for safety functions, emergency stops, interlocks or anything where a failure could hurt someone. Safety functions must run locally and be backed by independent safety systems rated for the application. You are responsible for the configurations you choose and for what your equipment does.

16. Limits on liability

16.1 Neither of us is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, or for lost profits, revenue, production or data.

16.2 HotLoop is provided as is, free of charge. To the extent the law allows, we are not liable to you for any damages arising from HotLoop, the Sites or these terms, whatever the legal theory.

16.3 Nothing in this section excludes or limits liability that the law does not allow to be excluded or limited, including fraud or wilful misconduct and bodily injury or death caused by negligence. Sections 16.1 and 16.2 do not limit what you owe us for your breach of the license or of Section 5.

16.4 If a third party makes a claim against us that arises from your data, your configurations, your use of HotLoop or your breach of these terms, you will defend us and pay any damages finally awarded and any settlement you agree to.

17. Export control

17.1 Each of us will follow US export control and sanctions laws, including the EAR, ITAR and OFAC rules. You will not use, export or give access to HotLoop in breach of those laws, or for a sanctioned person or country.

18. Disputes

18.1 Ohio law governs these terms, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.

18.2 Disputes go to the state or federal courts in Ohio. Each of us waives trial by jury.

18.3 Each side pays its own attorney fees and costs, whatever the outcome.

18.4 Nothing stops either of us seeking an urgent court order to protect confidential information or intellectual property.

19. Which document wins

19.1 For what you may do with the Software, the license wins over these terms. For everything else, these terms win over our other published pages. A signed agreement with HotLoop LLC wins over both where it says so.

20. General

20.1 You may not transfer these terms without our written consent. We may transfer them as part of a merger, reorganization or sale of our business.

20.2 We give notice on the Sites. Send notices to us at HotLoop LLC, 1410 Highland Rd #1, Macedonia, OH 44056, support@hotloop.io.

20.3 Neither of us is liable for delay caused by events beyond reasonable control.

20.4 If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, the rest still applies.

20.5 Not enforcing a term is not a waiver of it.

20.6 These terms create no partnership, agency or employment, and give no rights to third parties.

20.7 Sections 3, 5, 8, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 continue after these terms end.