Terms of Service

1. Eligibility, U.S. Availability, and Acceptance

You must be at least 18 years old to create or use a Heartbeat account. The Service is currently offered for account holders in the United States and is intended for emergency contacts in the United States. Heartbeat may refuse a number identified as outside the United States, including numbers in other countries that share the +1 country code.

When you select “Create account & agree,” purchase a subscription, or otherwise use the Service, you represent that you are at least 18 and agree to these Terms and the Privacy Policy. Heartbeat may retain an acceptance record identifying the applicable document versions and the time, application version, and device context of your acceptance.

You are responsible for maintaining accurate account information and for keeping access to your devices, credentials, and authentication methods secure.

2. What Heartbeat Does; Free and Paid Features

Heartbeat is a check-in and notification service designed to help a user arrange for designated emergency contacts to be notified when the user’s check-in pattern triggers the Service. Heartbeat may use push notifications, email, text messages, and automated telephone calls to operate the Service.

On the free plan, emergency-contact outreach is by email only. Eligible paid/member plans add service text messages and may include automated calls where enabled, and may also add text/call reminders to the account holder. Feature availability may depend on plan, device, settings, contact consent, carrier/provider availability, and applicable law.

Heartbeat is not a 911 service, emergency dispatch service, medical monitoring service, veterinary service, alarm company, security service, or substitute for contacting police, fire, emergency medical services, a veterinarian, family, neighbors, or another appropriate person. Heartbeat does not independently verify that an emergency exists.

3. No Guarantee of Contact, Delivery, Response, or Outcome

The Service depends on devices, batteries, operating systems, permissions, networks, telephone and email providers, third-party platforms, user settings, accurate information, and the availability and willingness of emergency contacts. We do not guarantee that a check-in will be detected, that a message or call will be transmitted or delivered, that a recipient will see or answer it, that a contact will respond, that any person will reach your home or pet, or that any particular outcome will occur.

Information shown anywhere other than the Heartbeat app itself, including widgets, watch apps, watch faces, complications, and similar displays, is provided for convenience only and is not real-time. It reflects the last update the device operating system allowed, may not reflect your current status, and does not indicate whether any person has been or will be contacted.

You should not rely on Heartbeat as your only safety plan. You are responsible for maintaining other reasonable arrangements appropriate to your circumstances.

4. Check-Ins and Monitoring

You are responsible for understanding how your check-in settings work and for keeping your device and account in a condition that permits the Service to operate. Device loss, disabled permissions, network interruption, battery depletion, operating-system restrictions, app deletion, sign-out, or other technical conditions may affect operation.

Heartbeat may adjust technical methods used to determine or record check-ins so long as the Service’s material purpose is not changed without notice required by law. Message frequency and escalation limits are applied on an incident basis, as reflected in the current product logic.

5. Emergency Contacts and Requests

You may ask people to serve as emergency contacts. You represent that the contact information you provide is accurate, that you are using it for a legitimate purpose connected to the Service, and that any personal message or information you provide is lawful and appropriate.

Heartbeat does not treat a person as an emergency contact merely because you entered that person’s information. The person must complete the applicable acceptance/consent process before Heartbeat sends incident communications to that person.

If the phone number belongs to an existing Heartbeat account, Heartbeat may send that user a one-time account/service request through available account channels, including push notification, verified email, and, where the requesting owner has an eligible paid plan and the recipient has agreed to applicable account messaging, text message. The recipient is not linked as your emergency contact unless the recipient affirmatively accepts.

After acceptance, an emergency contact may receive service email and, for an eligible paid/member account, service texts and automated calls using an artificial or synthesized voice, subject to the contact’s consent and settings. Heartbeat does not send marketing messages through the emergency-contact workflow.

An emergency contact may decline, block, unsubscribe, or revoke consent through the methods Heartbeat provides. If a contact becomes unavailable or opts out, you are responsible for designating another contact if you want continued coverage.

6. Care Plans and Home Access Information

You may provide pet information, veterinary information, home address, entry instructions, access codes, photographs, and other care information for use by a responding contact. You are responsible for the accuracy and safety of that information and for updating it when circumstances change.

Do not provide information you do not have the right to share. If you provide entry, lockbox, alarm, gate, building, or similar access instructions, you authorize Heartbeat to disclose that information to a confirmed responding contact through the incident care-plan link. Care information is not sent in ordinary text or email body copy. The care plan is shown through a recipient-specific incident link, and only to a contact who has said they will go. The home address, entry instructions, and photographs are shown for 24 hours; after that the contact may request a fresh link. The same link shows the contacts who were asked the status and history of the incident, without naming any contact, and stops working when you check in again.

7. Communications Consent for Your Own Account

By providing and verifying your own mobile number and accepting account messaging, you agree that Heartbeat may send automated service text messages and calls to that number concerning your account, verification, check-ins, incidents, security, operation of the Service, and requests from another Heartbeat user to ask you to become that user’s emergency contact. These communications are service communications, not marketing. Message and data rates may apply.

An account notice asking whether you want to become another user’s emergency contact does not itself authorize Heartbeat to send you incident messages for that user. Incident-related email, text, and call consent for that owner is recorded when you affirmatively accept the contact request.

You may revoke consent for telephone/text communications using the methods stated in a message, through available settings, or by contacting support. Some communications are necessary to authenticate or operate specific features; disabling them may prevent use of those features.

8. Emergency-Contact Consent and Opt-Outs

When you accept a request to be an emergency contact, the acceptance screen authorizes service communications for that owner. Depending on the owner’s plan and the channels covered by the disclosure, those communications may include email, text messages, and, where enabled, automated calls using an artificial or synthesized voice. Message frequency depends on incidents and your place in the escalation sequence.

While an incident is open, an emergency contact may add reports and notes to it and may ask for updates: by email, sent only after the contact confirms the address, or by text to the contact's verified number where the owner has an eligible paid plan. Updates end when the owner checks in again, or earlier on an email unsubscribe or STOP.

Email unsubscribe, spam-report, and applicable suppression events stop Heartbeat email to that address. STOP and equivalent telephone/text revocations stop Heartbeat texts and automated calls to that number. Heartbeat may retain the minimum suppression record needed to honor the request. A simple invitation decline is scoped to the requesting owner; a broader block applies only when the recipient affirmatively selects or communicates that broader scope.

9. Paid Subscriptions and Automatic Renewal

Heartbeat offers monthly and annual paid subscriptions through the Apple App Store and Google Play. The applicable store displays the current price, billing period, and purchase terms before you complete the purchase. Heartbeat does not receive your full payment-card information.

Unless you cancel, your subscription automatically renews at the end of each billing period at the price shown by the applicable store, subject to any notice or consent required by law or store policy. Your store account is charged according to the store’s terms.

You may cancel renewal through your Apple App Store or Google Play account settings. Cancellation generally stops future renewal and does not retroactively cancel a billing period already purchased. Refund eligibility and refund processing are governed by the applicable store’s policies and applicable law. Heartbeat cannot directly issue a store refund that the store controls.

Deleting the Heartbeat app or your Heartbeat account does not necessarily cancel an Apple or Google subscription. You must use the applicable store’s cancellation process unless the store provides another method.

10. Location and Address Search

Certain Heartbeat features may use device location when you enable the feature or grant the relevant device permission. When you select “Use my location” for an address or place search, your device’s mapping/geocoding service may receive precise coordinates to convert them to an address. Heartbeat does not store those precise coordinates. If you select or save the resulting address, the address itself may be stored as part of your care-plan or account information.

Any separate background-location feature is governed by the permissions and disclosures shown in the application and device operating system.

11. Acceptable Use

You may use the Service only for lawful personal purposes consistent with its intended function. You may not use the Service to harass, threaten, stalk, deceive, impersonate, repeatedly contact a person who declined or opted out, enroll information you know is inaccurate or unauthorized, interfere with consent or security controls, create a false emergency, facilitate unauthorized entry, scrape or overload the Service, or use Heartbeat for regulated commercial monitoring or dispatch purposes without our written agreement.

12. Your Content and License to Operate the Service

You retain ownership of information and content you submit. You grant Heartbeat a limited, non-exclusive license to host, process, transmit, reproduce, and display that content only as reasonably necessary to provide, secure, support, and improve the Service, comply with law, and enforce these Terms.

13. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, retain, and protect personal information. It also explains Heartbeat’s handling of information supplied about emergency contacts, communications records, location-related requests, analytics identifiers, and service-provider processing.

14. Suspension and Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time and may delete your account through the in-app account-deletion process, which requires verification through the confirmed mobile number. Subscription cancellation is separate and must be completed through the applicable app store.

We may suspend or terminate access if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms, abused the Service, created security or legal risk, failed to pay through the applicable store, or if suspension is necessary to protect users, contacts, Heartbeat, or third parties. Where reasonably practicable, we will provide notice unless doing so would create security, legal, or safety risk.

When a verified account deletion is completed, Heartbeat immediately removes the active account identity, sessions, care plan, pets, pet photos, monitoring and check-in history, incident history, push tokens, blocks, notification history, and identifying owner-side emergency-contact data. Heartbeat may retain limited non-identifying consent-event dates and disclosure-version references, signup acceptance records, app-store purchase records, provider-level suppression records, security/fraud records, dispute records, and information subject to legal hold. Deleted database rows may remain in rotating provider backups for up to seven days before expiration.

15. Changes to the Service and Terms

We may change the Service and these Terms from time to time. If a change materially affects your rights or obligations, we will provide notice appropriate to the change and applicable law. The updated Terms will identify their effective date. Where consent is legally required for a change, we will obtain it before applying the change to you.

16. Disclaimers

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” HEARTBEAT DISCLAIMS WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, AVAILABILITY, UNINTERRUPTED OPERATION, DELIVERY, RESPONSE, OR ANY PARTICULAR SAFETY OR CARE OUTCOME. NOTHING IN THESE TERMS EXCLUDES A WARRANTY OR RIGHT THAT CANNOT LAWFULLY BE EXCLUDED.

17. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, HEARTBEAT AND ITS AFFILIATES, MEMBERS, MANAGERS, OFFICERS, CONTRACTORS, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA, LOSS OF USE, LOSS OF GOODWILL, OR SIMILAR LOSSES ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE, EVEN IF ADVISED THAT SUCH DAMAGES ARE POSSIBLE.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, HEARTBEAT’S TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE TOTAL AMOUNT YOU PAID FOR HEARTBEAT DURING THE TWELVE MONTHS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM.

These limitations do not apply to liability that cannot be limited or excluded under applicable law, and they do not limit any non-waivable statutory rights or remedies.

18. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold Heartbeat harmless from third-party claims arising from your unlawful misuse of the Service, your knowingly inaccurate or unauthorized submission of another person’s information, or content you provide that infringes another person’s rights. This provision does not require you to indemnify Heartbeat for Heartbeat’s own negligence, willful misconduct, or violation of law.

19. Governing Law and Forum

These Terms and any dispute arising from them or the Service are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules, except that mandatory consumer-protection law in your place of residence may apply where it cannot lawfully be waived. The organization and internal affairs of That’s the Spot Productions LLC remain governed by applicable Delaware law.

Unless applicable law requires another forum, any court proceeding arising from these Terms or the Service must be brought in a state or federal court of competent jurisdiction in Massachusetts, and each party consents to personal jurisdiction there.

20. General

If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not transfer your account or these Terms without our consent. We may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, financing, reorganization, sale of assets, or similar transaction. These Terms and the Privacy Policy constitute the agreement governing your use of the Service, together with any additional terms shown at purchase or for a specific feature.

21. Contact

Questions about these Terms may be sent to support@heartbeat.pet. Mailing address: Heartbeat, 254 Chapman Rd, Ste 208 #26303, Newark, DE 19702.