Terms of service.

Who we are

Hearth is operated by {Hearth Ltd}, a company registered in England and Wales (company number {00000000}), with a registered office at {address}. In these terms, "Hearth", "we", "us" and "our" mean that company. "You" means anyone using the service.

What Hearth does

Hearth lets a family, friends or carers create a small private circle around someone they look out for. A trusted person invites the member (the person being looked out for) to join. The member taps a button when they're alright. The app can tell the circle when the member arrives home or leaves home, and the member can raise a help request if they want one. That's the whole service.

Hearth is not a tracker. It does not record a continuous trail of where anyone goes. It does not share information with employers, insurers, or advertisers. It does not give one person access to another person's data without that person being signed in to Hearth and choosing to join a circle.

Hearth is not an emergency service, not a medical device, and not a replacement for in-person care. If you need urgent help, call 999.

Who can use Hearth

• You must be 18 or over to create an account that looks out for someone else.
• To add a member to your circle, they must agree to join. We do not allow anyone to add a member without that person's knowledge and consent. Using Hearth to monitor a person who hasn't agreed to it is a misuse of the service and a breach of these terms.
• You must be able to enter into a binding contract under the laws of England and Wales.
• If you're using Hearth on behalf of a vulnerable adult who lacks capacity to consent, the arrangement must comply with the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Email us if you need guidance.

Your account

Trusted people sign in with a magic link sent to their email. Members join by tapping an invite link from someone they trust. Keep your email account secure, because anyone with access to it can sign in as you. We will never ask for your password and we don't have one.

You can delete your account at any time from inside the app or by emailing [email protected]. Deletion is permanent, although we keep a small audit log for 30 days in case of fraud.

Paying for Hearth

Hearth is free to use during the current early-access phase. When we introduce a paid plan, we'll give you at least 30 days' notice by email, and you'll be able to decide whether to continue.

Paid plans, once available, will be billed monthly through our payment provider. You can cancel any time from your settings, and your subscription will keep working until the end of the period you've paid for.

What you can and can't do

Using Hearth, you agree not to:

• Add anyone to a circle without their knowledge and clear consent.
• Use Hearth to harass, intimidate, or control another person.
• Use Hearth to monitor children, employees, or anyone other than a consenting adult who has joined your circle.
• Try to break into other people's accounts or circles.
• Reverse-engineer, scrape, or copy our service for a competing product.
• Send automated traffic to our servers beyond ordinary use.
• Pretend to be Hearth or send communications that look like they're from us.
• Use Hearth in any way that breaks UK law.

We may suspend or end your account if you do any of these. We will tell you why and give you a chance to reply, unless we can't safely do so.

Information you give us

When you submit information (names, a home address, location, check-ins, help requests), you confirm that you have the right to share it with us, and you give us permission to display it to the other people in your circle and to process it as described in our privacy policy.

You keep ownership of what you submit. We will never sell it or use it to train AI models.

What we promise (and what we don't)

We work hard to keep Hearth available, accurate, and secure. We can't promise it'll be perfect:

• Hearth is provided "as is". We don't promise it'll be available without interruption, or that it'll be free of bugs.
• Location detection depends on the member's phone, network, and device permissions. We can't guarantee a notification will arrive when expected.
• Push notifications, SMS, and email delivery depend on third parties (Apple, Google, your network operator). Delays and failures happen.
• Hearth is not a substitute for staying in touch with the people you love. Pick up the phone.

Our liability to you

To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you for any claim related to Hearth is limited to the greater of £100 or the amount you've paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose.

We won't be liable for indirect or consequential losses, lost profits, or losses that weren't reasonably foreseeable when you started using Hearth.

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability that the law doesn't allow us to limit, including liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for any other matter under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 that can't be excluded.

If you're a business

Hearth is built for individuals and families. If you're using it on behalf of a business, the protections in the Consumer Rights Act don't apply, the liability cap above still does, and disputes go to mediation before court.

Ending your use of Hearth

You can stop using Hearth and delete your account any time. We can end your use if you breach these terms, if we need to stop offering the service, or if we have to for legal reasons. We'll give you reasonable notice and a chance to download your data, except where doing so would cause serious harm.

Once your account is deleted, we'll remove your information as set out in the privacy policy.

Changes to these terms

We'll let you know by email at least 30 days before a material change. Small wording fixes will go live with a new "last updated" date at the top of this page. If you keep using Hearth after a change, you're agreeing to the updated terms.

Disputes

We hope it never comes to this. If there's a problem, email [email protected] first and let us try to put it right. If we can't reach an agreement, you can refer the dispute to the relevant alternative dispute resolution body or take it to court.

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Disputes are subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales, except that consumers in Scotland or Northern Ireland may bring claims in their local courts.