Gravity by Vaonis application
GENERAL TERM OF USE
Version 1.0 in date of 11/13/2023
1. PREAMBLE.
These general terms of use (“GTU”) govern your use of our GRAVITY BY VAONIS application (hereinafter “GRAVITY” or the “Application”).
The use of the features of our GRAVITY application therefore implies the prior and unreserved acceptance of these conditions. Otherwise, you will not be able to use this application.
2. EDITOR OF THE APPLICATION.
The GRAVITY application is published by our company VAONIS, a French company whose registered office is located at 225 rue Didier Daurat, 34170, Castelnau-le-Lez, en France, with a share capital of €21, 433.80, with the Trade and Companies Register of Montpellier under number SIRET 823 710 447.
The Publishing Director is Cyril Dupuy.
VAONIS contact details are:
- E-mail address: info@vaonis.com
- Telephone number: +33 (0)5 32 18 35 43
3. DESCRIPTION OF THE APPLICATION.
The GRAVITY application is intended for use with HESTIA telescopes (hereinafter the “HESTIA Telescope”).
More precisely, HESTIA Telescopes are new generation telescopes developed and marketed by our company VAONIS allowing you to observe space. To operate, these telescopes must be connected to the GRAVITY application and used in accordance with their instructions.
When you use the GRAVITY application with your HESTIA telescope, you can:
- Observe space through your HESTIA Telescope;
- Take photographs of your observations of the sky or landscape;
- Store your photographs taken through your telescope on your terminal;
- Learning, through educational content;
- Receive notifications of skywatching events;
- If your HESTIA Telescope is equipped with a solar filter produced by our company VAONIS, you can also observe the sun and take photographs.
4. TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS.
The GRAVITY application can be downloaded to smartphones from the Apple Store or Google Play store, depending on the operating system of your device. Our application is supported from version IOS 15 for Apple devices, and from version Android 11 for other devices.
An internet connection (Wi-Fi) is required while the Application is being downloaded and used. The cost of this connection to access and use the Application is at your expense.
You do not need a HESTIA Telescope to download and use our application. However, in this case you will only have access to limited functionality of our GRAVITY application, consisting of the viewing of certain information content of our application.
If you are equipped with a HESTIA Telescope, after downloading the Application, you will need to connect your smartphone to your HESTIA telescope. The first time you use the Application, you will be asked to scan the QR CODE containing the serial number of your HESTIA Telescope. Each HESTIA telescope can be linked to a maximum of 5 smartphones. If this threshold is reached, you will be asked to contact our support team, or to display the list of linked devices so that you can request their deletion.
Once your smartphone has been linked to the HESTIA telescope, you will be able to access all the features of our application as described in article 3. However, to use the “SOLAR POINTING” function of the Application, which enables you to observe the sun through your HESTIA telescope, you will need to purchase a solar filter, an additional accessory sold on our website www.vaonis.com.
5. UPDATE.
We may update these terms of use from time to time. In this case, the “Permissions” page will be displayed on the Application so that you can read the new GTU (and, if applicable, the privacy policy) and accept them, failing which use of the Application will no longer be possible.
The current general terms of use of the GRAVITY application are also always available on our website www.vaonis.com.
6. FREE OF CHARGE APPLICATION.
There is no charge for using the GRAVITY application (except for the cost of your internet connection).
However, we remind you that you can only access most of the features of the GRAVITY application if you own and connect a HESTIA Telescope to our application. This telescope can be purchased online from our company on its website www.vaonis.com, or from our authorized resellers, whose list is available on our website.
In addition, some features of our GRAVITY application require the purchase of additional accessories that are not included in our HESTIA Telescopes. This is the case for the “SOLAR POINTING” feature, which allows you to observe the sun by fitting your HESTIA Telescope with a compatible solar filter sold by our company independently (or included in the Hestia Solar package), and to take photographs of your solar observations in JPEG format, that can be saved.
Optional features could also be offered for a fee.
7. ACCESS REQUESTS RELATED TO THE USE OF THE APPLICATION.
7.1 Access to your geolocation data
Use of the Application requires you to provide your GPS location data.
This location data is needed to help you point, to find the objects you want to observe, by calculating the position of objects in the sky. It also allows you to take account of weather parameters to adapt your observations.
You will have to accept the request for access to your GPS.
By giving us this permission, you agree to provide us with your GPS location data for the operation of the HESTIA Telescope. Depending on the model of your device, you may be asked for this permission each time you use the application, or it may be pre-recorded for your future use. In any case, you can set the access permissions to your GPS directly in the settings of your device.
GPS access will be required when you start the Application and activated during each use. We will only access your GPS when you use our Application.
7.2 Access to your camera
Use of the Application also requires access to your camera, to enable you to observe objects in the sky.
To this end, you must accept the request for access to your camera when you first open the Application.
This access will be effective each time you use the Application.
No image will be transmitted to our company or to any third party whatsoever.
7.3 Access to your photo gallery
To store the photographs taken with your HESTIA Telescope on your device, the Application will need access to your photo gallery. This access will be strictly limited to storing your photographs.
If you refuse this access request, the photographs taken by your telescope cannot be stored on your device and therefore cannot be registered.
7.4 Sharing features
The GRAVITY application allows you to share your photographs taken with the HESTIA Telescope with your friends and family through third party communication services that are already installed on your device and recognized by our application.
In this case, after you have chosen the third-party service that allows you to share your content, our application will communicate the data you have selected to the said service. You acknowledge that our company is not responsible for the use of your content by these third-party services, as our application only offers a sharing functionality via services already installed on your terminal, and this under your instructions and on your behalf.
8. RESPONSABILITY.
8.1 Interruption of our application
We make every effort to allow you to use our application 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, we cannot be held liable for any interruptions or temporary alterations to our Application resulting from maintenance, updates, or any other cause outside of VAONIS, such as the Internet network itself or by the means of connection you use.
VAONIS shall not be held liable if it chooses to stop making its GRAVITY application available to the public for its own discretionary reasons.
8.2 Third parties’ services
Our company is not responsible for the services of third parties to which you expressly allow access or whose functionalities you use during the use of our GRAVITY application. In particular, our company cannot be held responsible for the use of content that you send via third-party services using the sharing features presented in article 7.4.
8.3 Consequential damages
VAONIS shall not be liable for any consequential damages that you may suffer because of access to, use of or interruption of our GRAVITY application.
8.4 VAONIS warranty exclusions
It is imperative that you follow the instructions for the HESTIA Telescopes and our products when using them with our GRAVITY application, to ensure your safety and the safety of your equipment. You should also follow the instructions and tutorials that appear when you use the GRAVITY application.
Furthermore, you should only use accessories produced by our company VAONIS or accessories expressly approved by our company on your HESTIA Telescopes, in accordance with our technical requirements in Article 4 and the instructions for use of our products. Failure to do so may result in serious damage to your equipment.
VAONIS shall not be liable for the use of the GRAVITY application and our products, in particular our HESTIA Telescopes, if you do not comply with the instructions for use contained in the manuals of our products that are provided with them and also published on our website, and/or if you do not comply with the instructions that are displayed in our application during your use.
We also accept no liability in the event of your HESTIA telescope falling, and it is your responsibility to ensure that it is securely mounted on a tripod. The tripod should be fitted with a 2-axis (horizontal/vertical) fluid head, and you should take care not to exceed a pointing height of 85°. Once the tripod has been levelled, position your terminal on it and secure it properly, using the magnets supplied.
We shall also not be liable if you use our products under abnormal conditions or for any other purposes than those for which our products were designed, or if you use accessories that are not supplied by or expressly approved by VAONIS.
In case of malfunction of our products or material damage resulting from the violation of our instructions and/or the non-observance of the instructions available in our application, you acknowledge that the legal guarantees applicable to our products may be excluded.
8.4.1 EXPRESS WARNING REGARDING SUN OBSERVATION
You are expressly informed that your HESTIA Telescope should never be pointed at the sun without the installation of a solar filter provided by our company (or compatible with your HESTIA Telescope but we decline all responsibility for the use of such a filter).
Never look directly at the sun without adequate protection. Looking directly at the sun through telescope optics, without protection and without a solar filter, even for a short time, can lead to severe eye burns and potential loss of vision in the eye, even to blindness.
If you use a solar filter provided by our company and compatible with your VAONIS Telescope to use the “SOLAR POINTING” feature of our application, you agree to follow the instructions for use of this accessory and the instructions displayed in our application.
In particular, It is imperative that you check the condition of the solar filter (the filter must not be damaged) and its correct positioning according to the instructions in our manual and in the Application.
You acknowledge that the Application cannot detect whether or not the solar filter is present on the HESTIA telescope. For example, during a solar eclipse, the Application may prompt you to remove the filter during the totality phase and replace it at the end: you are the sole judge of whether to remove or replace the filter, as this will vary according to the location and duration of the observation.
In the event of a problem that cannot be solved by screwing the filter back on, you can contact our support department using the contact details provided in your VAONIS solar filter manual or those listed in article 2.
To protect your terminal, please observe the following instructions. Never look at the sun with your smartphone without a solar filter, as this could damage it. It is also important to ensure that your smartphone does not overheat, which could happen if you leave it on the HESTIA telescope for too long, or leave it out in the sun all day.
If you do not follow these instructions, your solar observation poses a high risk for your instrument, including the risk of overheating its components and fire. You are also exposing yourself to a significant health risk due to possible unprotected sun viewing which may result in irreversible eye damage.
In accordance with Article 8.4, you acknowledge that in the event of a violation of our instructions for use and/or failure to comply with the above instructions and/or those available in our application concerning the ” SOLAR POINTING ” functionality, the legal warranties applicable to our products may be excluded. In particular, the costs of repairing our products because of these breaches will remain at your expense. The same shall apply in the event of any direct, indirect and/or consequential personal injury and/or material damage.
8.5 Warranty of conformity
If you reside within the European Union, we guarantee the Application, the content and the digital service derived therefrom against any lack of conformity that may appear during the period during which the service is provided hereunder. The starting point of the limitation period for your action is, where applicable, the day on which you become aware of the lack of conformity.
However, we shall not be held liable for any lack of conformity if the lack of conformity is directly attributable to incompatibility between the digital content or service and your digital environment in relation to the technical compatibility requirements set forth herein.
In the event of a lack of conformity, you agree to contact us and cooperate with us, to the extent reasonably possible, necessary and least intrusive for you, to determine whether the lack of conformity is caused by such incompatibility. If this is not the case, the burden of proof of the non-conformity will be yours.
If applicable, VAONIS will consider the cost of bringing the digital content/service into compliance in accordance with the law.
The Application may be updated from time to time. In the context of the guarantee of conformity, if updates have a negative impact on your ability to access or use the Application, or if the service is interrupted, we will provide prior notice within a reasonable time, including a description and effective date of the changes.
9. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS.
9.1 Our intellectual property rights
The Application is protected by intellectual property rights.
Nevertheless, VAONIS grants you a free, non-exclusive, worldwide, and temporary right to use the Application, including the use of its interfaces, its functionalities and the consultation of its contents.
This right of use is granted for strictly personal and private use of our application, in compliance with these general terms of use. This use is exceptionally limited to members of your household, you and the members of your household are hereinafter referred to as the “User”.
The User is prohibited from copying, printing, saving or using data from the database of the Application in any form whatsoever, other than under the conditions exhaustively provided for herein. Web scraping, aggregation and/or indexing of data is prohibited without the express prior consent of VAONIS.
Any use of the Application and our HESTIA Telescopes for professional purposes requires prior express written permission, independent of these general terms of use. In this case, you should contact us at info@vaonis.com.
Any professional use of our Application, and in particular any commercial use, without having obtained prior authorization from our company, would expose you to legal proceedings.
You are informed that the right of use granted to you by VAONIS ceases upon your uninstallation of the Application or upon simple notification by VAONIS. This license also ends if the GRAVITY application is no longer used by our company for reasons of its own.
In any case, the license granted to you does not allow you to reproduce the contents of our GRAVITY application (images, videos, files, texts, trademarks, logos, etc.), to modify them, to extract them, to export them, or to distribute them to third parties outside your family circle or your close relations, as such acts may constitute infringement of copyright, which may allow our company VAONIS to sue you.
This license does not include, but is not limited to, the right to:
- Copy, modify, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble all or part of the Application, nor display, represent or distribute it publicly or in any way whatsoever, nor reproduce or copy its contents without the express prior authorization of VAONIS;
- Infringe any rights of third parties or other users, including rights to image, confidentiality, privacy and any other rights, including intellectual property rights;
- Collect, extract and process in any form and by any means personal data of any other user of the Application;
- Disseminate, via the Application and its infrastructure, abusive, slanderous, hateful, discriminatory, defamatory, pornographic remarks/content etc. likely to create prejudice towards any User or any third party;
- Identify persons without their express prior consent to the publication of their personal information;
- Distribute any personal data whose purpose and/or effect is to identify and/or make a natural person identifiable;
- Distribute promotional and/or commercial messages via the Application;
- Undermine the security, availability and/or continuity of the Application, its hosting infrastructure (servers, systems, networks, etc.) and more generally any tangible or intangible asset directly or indirectly linked to the Application, through the introduction of any virus, worm, Trojan horse or other Malware ;
- Directly and/or indirectly distribute the Application in any form whatsoever;
- Download and/or store all or part of the content of the Application and/or made accessible through it to create a database, whatever the use and/or purpose;
- Transmit data generated from the Application other than as provided herein and/or made available by VAONIS;
- And more generally contravene all or part of the legal provisions and/or provided for herein.
We may implement any technical and/or organizational measure with the purpose and/or effect of preventing any use contrary to the provisions herein. The User agrees not to misuse and/or circumvent these measures.
In case of infringement of our intellectual property or of any of the above prohibitions, we reserve the right to suspend or delete without notice your publications, broadcasts and the use of our HESTIA Telescopes.
Finally, we would like to point out that some of the content of our application is licensed to us by third parties, comes from Creative Commons licenses, or is freely made available by third parties. VAONIS is not the owner of this content, which is identified below and must be handled with care in order to respect the license granted.
More specifically, VAONIS is not the owner of following contents:
- Sunrise Icons created by Kawalan icon from the Noun Project
- Notifications Icons made By Anatoly from www.flaticon.com
- Share Icons made By Freepik from www.flaticon.com
- Saturn Icons created by Juan Pablo Bravo from the Noun Project
- Image background by macrovector_official on Freepik
- Image background by Jordan Steranka
- Image background by Zongnan Bao and Shashank Sahay
9.2 Your intellectual property rights
The content you create while observing the sky through your HESTIA Telescope is your property. More precisely, we mean the photographs that you can make with the features of your HESTIA Telescope.
However, if you decide to publish this content on any public platform to other users of the GRAVITY application, you agree to grant us a non-exclusive and free license to host and publish your photographs to other members and users of the GRAVITY application. This license is necessarily worldwide due to the worldwide accessibility of our application.
You may terminate these licenses at any time, and therefore the publication of your content on the Application.
We will not make any commercial use of your content, as the licenses you grant us are strictly necessary for the publication of your content on our GRAVITY application. These licenses will cover the rights of reproduction and representation of the contents concerned on our Application. They may be transferred in the context of a merger, sale or change of control to the new successor of our company.
10. PERSONAL DATA.
VAONIS may be required to process some of your personal data to provide you with some additional services to our Application. In this case, we would process some of your personal data in our legitimate interest, to perform a service you expect from us.
In this context, our company would act as a data controller within the meaning of the EU Regulation n°2016/679 and the French Data Protection Act n? 78-17 of 6 January 1978 as amended.
The data processing which would be carried out by our company VAONIS would therefore require compliance with specific legal obligations arising from the regulations on the protection of personal data.
Our company VAONIS is committed to respecting these obligations. In the event that we process some of your personal data, we will submit our privacy policy, to inform you as well as possible about the processing of your personal data.
The use of these additional services to our GRAVITY application implies that you are aware of this privacy policy. Otherwise, you will not be able to use these services.
11. DURATION.
These GTU govern your use of our GRAVITY application until you cease using it and/or delete your member account. They are therefore concluded for an indefinite period. Please note that these GTU are subject to change, as specified in article 5.
It is specified that these GTU will continue to be enforceable against you to resolve any dispute arising from your past use of our application and the HESTIA Telescope. In addition, the articles that are intended to survive the end of these terms and conditions of use will remain in force until the rights and obligations relating to them expire.
12. CONTACT – ASSISTANCE.
12.1 generalities
For any questions or requests regarding our application, such as how it works, how to use it, our services, you can contact us at the following address:
- support@vaonis.com
12.2 Personal data
For any questions or requests specifically about your personal data, you can contact us at the following address:
- dpo@vaonis.com
Our contact person will respond within one month of receiving your request.
However, this period may be extended by two months, depending on the complexity and number of requests. In addition, you may be asked to provide proof of identity to respond to your request.
13. GOVERNING LAW – DISPUTE.
These general terms of use are written in English and are subject to French law, subject to the imperative provisions of private international law.
In the event of a dispute concerning the present general terms of use and our GRAVITY application, amicable settlement will be preferred. Mediation will be proposed to our users with consumer status.
If no amicable settlement is reached within 3 months of the initiation of mediation, the party wishing to do so may refer the matter to the competent courts.
14. MEDIATION.
Persons who have the status of consumers are informed of the possibility of referring their dispute free of charge to a consumer mediator, and more specifically to a mediator of the Centre de médiation de la consommation de Conciliateurs de Justice (website: https://cm2c.net/).
You can also access the European platform for online dispute resolution provided by Regulation (EU) No 524/2013 of 21 May 2013 on the online settlement of consumer disputes, in particular cross-border disputes, by following the link below: http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/
15. LEGAL NOTICES.
The GRAVITY application is hosted by Amazon Web Services, Inc. P.O. Box 81226 Seattle, WA 98108-1226 USA which can be contacted via: https://aws.amazon.com/fr/contact-us/