What does a new Charyl box tell Charyl Cloud before I set it up?

Where it is on your home network, and a random ID for the box, so charyl.net/start can take your browser to it. Nothing about your home. It starts before you sign in.

Where the box is on your home network, with a random ID for the box. That is what lets you type charyl.net/start on a computer at home and land on your box’s setup page.

What it sends

Its address inside your home. A private address such as 192.168.1.50. It only works for devices on the same local network as the box.
The port its setup page uses.
The four characters printed on its label, after “Charyl Setup”.
A random ID for the box. It is made when the box is set up for shipping and stays the same unless the box is wiped and set up again. It lets the box replace its own entry, and it means Charyl Cloud can tell it is the same box if its address changes.

Charyl Cloud also sees the internet address the message came from, the way any website you visit does, and keeps it with the entry. That is how it knows which browsers are at the same home as the box.

Nothing about your home is in it: no rooms, records, photos, conversations or account.

When it starts

As soon as the box is plugged in and online. That is before you have signed in or agreed to anything. It repeats about every fifteen minutes, and it keeps going after setup.

There is no setting to turn it off today.

How it is used

Only to answer charyl.net/start. That page answers a browser that comes from the same internet connection as the box, and shows it the box’s address. From anywhere else it says it can’t see a Charyl.

If more than one Charyl box is on the same connection, the page says so and shows no address until you type the four characters from your box’s label.

On a shared internet connection

In an apartment building or an office, other people can share your internet connection. One of them could open that page and learn that a Charyl box is there, and its address inside the network. That address only works for devices on the same local network as the box. If they share that network with you too, as in most offices, it works for them, and until you have set your box up it opens the setup page.

How long it is kept

Charyl Cloud keeps one entry per box and replaces it each time the box checks in. An entry that has not been refreshed for 45 minutes is ignored, and old entries are cleared out as boxes check in.

Separately, the servers that carry the message keep ordinary request logs, which include the internet address it came from and the time.

Which boxes do this

Boxes set up on software version 0.3.9 or later do it. A box set up on earlier software does not, even after it updates.