Terms of Service

1. The agreement

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) govern your use of the Kestrel applications — Kestrel for Linux, the Kestrel channel for Roku, the Kestrel Screensaver for Roku, and Kestrel HLS, the Home Assistant add-on (together, the “Software”) — and of this website (the “Site”). The Software and the Site are provided by Schooley Industries (“we”, “us”, “our”).

By downloading, installing or using the Software, or by using the Site, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree to them, do not install or use the Software.

You must be old enough to form a binding contract where you live in order to accept these Terms. If you are accepting them on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you are authorised to do so, and “you” means that organisation.

2. What Kestrel is

Kestrel is client software that runs entirely on your own hardware. It connects over your local network to network video recorders and cameras that you own or are authorised to use, using those devices' own HTTP and streaming interfaces — including the ONVIF standard — and it displays and controls what those devices provide. Kestrel for Linux can also reach a Reolink device by its cloud UID, through Reolink's own P2P service; that is optional, and happens only for a device you give a UID.

Kestrel is not an online service. We operate no servers that your video, credentials or camera data pass through, and we have no ability to view, retrieve or restore anything the Software displays or stores. There is no Kestrel account to create and nothing of ours to sign in to — buying the Roku channel uses your Roku account, which is Roku's, not ours. See the Privacy Policy for the detail.

Because the Software is local, its behaviour depends heavily on hardware, firmware and network conditions that we neither supply nor control. The capabilities available to you are whatever your device reports and provides.

3. Licence to use Kestrel

Kestrel for Linux is free of charge and open source. It is released under the MIT licence and the Apache License 2.0, at your option; where those licence terms apply to a component, they govern your rights in that component and prevail over any conflicting statement in these Terms.

Kestrel HLS is free of charge and open source, released under the MIT licence, and the same applies to it: that licence governs your rights in it. It is optional software you install and run on your own machine; buying the Roku channel neither includes nor requires it, and it adds nothing to what you pay.

Kestrel for Roku is a paid application, sold as a one-time purchase through the Roku Channel Store. On purchase, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to install and use it on Roku devices associated with the Roku account that bought it, for your own purposes. Kestrel Screensaver is free, and is licensed to you on the same terms.

The licence for the Roku applications lasts as long as these Terms are in force and the platform continues to support them. We may revoke it if you materially breach these Terms; we will not revoke a purchased licence otherwise.

Except as an applicable open-source licence or mandatory law permits, you agree not to:

• sell, rent, sublicense or distribute the Software as your own product;
• remove or obscure any notice of copyright, licence, or attribution;
• represent a modified version as being the official Kestrel, or use the Kestrel name, wordmark or icons in a way that suggests we produced, endorsed or support something we did not;
• use the Software to circumvent access controls on a device or service you are not authorised to use.

We retain all rights in the Software, the Kestrel name and the Kestrel branding that are not expressly granted here.

4. Purchases and payment

Kestrel for Roku is sold through the Roku Channel Store. Roku, not us, is the merchant for that sale. Roku takes the payment, issues the receipt, applies any tax, and records the entitlement against your Roku account. We never see or hold your card details, billing address or any other payment information.

Your purchase is therefore also governed by Roku's own terms of sale, and by the terms of the payment method you use. Where those conflict with these Terms in respect of the transaction itself, theirs govern the transaction.

A one-time purchase

Kestrel for Roku is bought once. It is not a subscription: there is no recurring charge, no automatic renewal, no trial that converts into a payment, and no in-app purchase or advertising inside the app. What you pay at the point of sale is the whole cost of the software.

The purchase is tied to the Roku account that made it, so it applies to the Roku devices on that account and survives removing and reinstalling the channel. It is personal to you and cannot be transferred or resold separately from that account.

Kestrel Screensaver is free. It is a separate store entry because Roku does not permit an app to carry its own screensaver, and it is not a second purchase. It depends on the Kestrel app being installed and configured to be of any use, which is stated in its store listing and on this site.

Prices

The current price is the one shown on the Roku Channel Store listing at the time you buy, inclusive or exclusive of tax as that listing states. We may change the price of the app at any time. A change never affects a purchase already made — you will not be charged again, and no refund is due if the price later falls.

Refunds

Because Roku takes the payment, refund requests go to Roku and are handled under Roku's refund policy, not ours. We cannot issue a refund for a purchase we did not process.

Nothing in this section limits any statutory right to cancel, to a refund, or to a remedy for software that is faulty or not as described, which you may have under consumer law where you live. If Kestrel does not do what this site and the store listing say it does, tell us at the address in section 17 — we would rather fix it or help you get your money back than leave you with something that does not work.

We publish the platform's limitations prominently — snapshot-based live video on Roku, polled rather than pushed detections, and local-network operation apart from the optional weather and the desktop client's optional Reolink UID connections — precisely so that these are known before purchase rather than discovered after it. Please read them before you buy.

5. What you need to supply

Kestrel is useless on its own. To use it you must supply, at your own cost and risk:

• compatible camera or NVR hardware, and credentials for it;
• a network on which that hardware and your Kestrel device can reach each other;
• a supported computer or Roku device, and where applicable a Roku account;
• where you want full-motion video on a Roku, either Kestrel HLS on a machine of your own running Home Assistant, or a third-party restreamer you choose to use;

You are responsible for the security of that hardware, network and those credentials — including keeping device firmware current, using an account with no more privilege than necessary, and not exposing camera equipment directly to the public internet.

6. Acceptable use

You may use Kestrel only to access cameras and recordings that you own or are expressly authorised to access, and only in a manner that is lawful where you and the cameras are located.

Surveillance is regulated. Laws in many places restrict where cameras may point, whether audio may be captured, what notice or signage is required, how long footage may be retained, and who may view it — with additional rules for workplaces, tenancies and shared buildings. Meeting those obligations is entirely your responsibility. We provide a viewer; we make no representation that any particular use of it is lawful.

You agree not to use the Software:

• to access any device, network or footage without authorisation;
• to monitor a person in a place or manner they are legally entitled to expect privacy;
• to stalk, harass, intimidate or endanger anyone;
• to record or view where doing so would breach data protection, wiretapping, employment or tenancy law applicable to you;
• in any way that breaches the terms applying to your device, your platform, or your network.

7. Not a life-safety system

Kestrel is a viewing and control tool. It is not a monitored alarm system, an intrusion detection system, a recording system, or any kind of life-safety equipment, and it must not be relied on as one.

Specifically, and by design:

• Kestrel does not record your cameras continuously. Your NVR or camera does the recording; Kestrel plays back what the device provides and can record the live stream on demand to a file you choose.
• Motion and AI detections are polled from the device at an interval, not pushed. A detection shorter than the polling interval may never be reported, and the event list starts empty each time the Software is launched.
• Alerts, notifications and follow-motion behaviour depend on your device, your network and your operating system, any of which can delay or drop them without notice.
• Live video may be unavailable, delayed, degraded or shown as a sequence of stills rather than continuous motion, depending on the platform and the streaming route in use.
• The weather display is not a warning system. Where Kestrel shows conditions, a forecast, radar imagery or National Weather Service watches, warnings and advisories, it is repeating what a public service or your own weather server published, on a timer, on a best-effort basis. It may be out of date, incomplete, wrong or entirely absent — because the service was unreachable, because the feature was switched off, because the television was not on, or because of a defect in Kestrel. Never rely on it to learn that severe weather is coming. Use the National Weather Service directly, a NOAA Weather Radio, or the emergency alerting on your phone.

If you need dependable detection, alerting or retention, use equipment and services designed and certified for that purpose. Do not use Kestrel where failure could lead to injury, loss of life, or serious property or environmental damage.

8. Independence from the systems it supports

Kestrel is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or supported by Reolink, Ubiquiti, QNAP, Roku, ONVIF, Inc., the ZoneMinder or Frigate projects, or any other camera, recorder or television manufacturer. Those and other product names are trademarks of their respective owners, and are used on this Site and in the Software solely to describe what Kestrel is compatible with.

Kestrel communicates with camera hardware over that hardware's own interfaces. Most are documented; Reolink's Baichuan and P2P protocols, which the Linux client uses for live video and for reaching a device by its UID, are not, and Kestrel speaks them as Reolink's own app does. All of these interfaces, and the behaviour of the devices behind them, may change at any time without notice and may break the Software. Support for Kestrel comes from us, not from your device manufacturer — please do not contact them about it. Equally, we cannot provide support for your hardware, firmware or Roku device.

9. Third-party software and stores

The Software includes and interoperates with third-party components, each under its own licence. Notably, Kestrel for Linux bundles the ffmpeg libraries under the LGPL, built without GPL-licensed components and shipped as shared libraries so that they may be replaced. Those licences continue to apply to those components, and nothing in these Terms limits any right they grant you.

Where you obtain the Software through a distribution platform such as the Roku Channel Store, that platform's own terms and privacy policy apply to your use of the platform, in addition to these Terms. We do not control those platforms, their availability, or their handling of your information.

If you choose to use optional third-party software with Kestrel — an HLS restreamer such as go2rtc, MediaMTX or Frigate, for example — that software is yours to configure, secure and support. We provide configuration examples as a convenience only and make no warranty about them.

The optional weather feature displays data obtained from outside services: the National Weather Service and NOAA, and, for the map beneath the radar, Esri. Those services are not ours. We do not control their availability, accuracy, coverage or terms, any of which may change or be withdrawn without notice, and Kestrel may stop showing some or all of the weather as a result. The privacy policy lists exactly what is requested and from where.

If you reach a Reolink device by its UID from Kestrel for Linux, the connection is brokered — and may be relayed, video included — by Reolink's P2P servers. That service is Reolink's, not ours, and your use of it is subject to Reolink's own terms and privacy policy. We do not control its availability, security or behaviour; Reolink may change, restrict or withdraw it at any time, and connections by UID may stop working as a result. Connecting by address does not depend on it. The privacy policy sets out what it is sent.

10. Updates and availability

We may change, suspend or discontinue the Software, any of its features, or this Site at any time, and we are under no obligation to provide updates, fixes, support or continued availability of any download or store listing. Copies you have already installed will keep working for as long as your own hardware and firmware allow.

If we withdraw Kestrel for Roku from sale, that removes it from the store for new buyers; it does not cancel a purchase already made. An entitlement you have already bought remains yours for as long as Roku maintains it on your account and your device supports the app — which is within Roku's control rather than ours. We do not owe a refund for a purchase because the app is later discontinued, except where consumer law says otherwise.

Updates may be delivered through the platform you installed from, and may add, change or remove functionality. Continuing to use the Software after an update means accepting the Terms as they stand at that time.

11. Disclaimer of warranties

The Software and the Site are provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranty of any kind. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement, and any warranty arising from course of dealing or usage of trade.

Without limiting that, we do not warrant that the Software will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error-free; that it will be compatible with your particular device, firmware or network; that video, snapshots, recordings or detections will be delivered, accurate, complete or retained; or that defects will be corrected.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or of implied statutory rights. Where that is the case, the exclusions above apply only to the extent permitted, and nothing in these Terms affects consumer rights that cannot be waived.

12. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, footage, goodwill, property, or business opportunity, arising out of or relating to the Software, the Site, or these Terms — whether in contract, tort (including negligence), strict liability or otherwise, and even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

This includes, without limitation, any loss arising from a missed or delayed detection, a failed or unavailable stream, footage that was not recorded or could not be played back, an unauthorised person gaining access to your device or credentials, or any incident that surveillance might have deterred, documented or prevented.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Software, the Site, or these Terms will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid for the Software in the twelve (12) months before the event giving rise to the claim, or fifty US dollars (US$50). For the free applications, the amount paid is nothing, and the cap is US$50.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

13. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Schooley Industries and its owners, officers, contributors and agents from any claim, demand, loss, liability, cost or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of your use of the Software, your breach of these Terms, or your violation of any law or of the rights of any third party — including any claim brought by a person recorded, observed or monitored using Kestrel.

14. Termination

These Terms apply for as long as you use the Software. You may end them at any time by uninstalling it. We may terminate the licence granted in section 3 if you materially breach these Terms — though as we operate no service, enforcement in practice means you must stop using and distributing the Software.

Sections that by their nature should survive termination do so, including sections 6 through 13 and 16.

15. Changes to these terms

We may revise these Terms from time to time. The current version is always the one published at this address, with the “last updated” date at the top. Material changes will be reflected in that date, and your continued use of the Software or the Site after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms. If you do not accept them, stop using the Software.

16. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Indiana, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and the courts of the State of Indiana will have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from them — except that either party may seek injunctive relief in any court of competent jurisdiction.

If you are a consumer, this does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory laws of the country where you live, or of your right to bring proceedings there.

If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, it will be limited or removed to the minimum extent necessary and the rest will remain in force. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.

17. Contact

Schooley Industries
[email protected]

For anything about how Kestrel handles information, see the Privacy Policy.