Hearthbook Privacy Policy

Effective October 1, 2026

Hearthbook is made by Edwin Zhao, an independent developer. This page explains what the app stores, where, who can see it, and how to delete it. Questions: contact@edwinzhao.com.

What Hearthbook stores

• Your account. When you use Sign in with Apple, we receive an account identifier, the name you choose to share, and an email address, which may be a private relay address from Apple.
• What you add. Homes, rooms and things (names, models and serial numbers you type), manuals and photos you attach, guides and their steps, and the photos, videos and voice notes you add to steps.
• Help contacts. A name and phone number you enter on a guide so others know who to call.
• Progress. Which steps are done, so the people in your home can see it.

Who can see it

What you add to a home is visible to the people who belong to that home. It is not public, and we do not sell it, share it with advertisers, or use it to track you.

Where it is kept

Hearthbook stores data with Google Firebase (Google Cloud) in the United States. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by Google. A nightly backup of the database is kept for 30 days to recover from mistakes.

What Hearthbook does not collect

No advertising, no analytics or tracking tools, and no location. The only automatic report is a crash report, below. The camera, microphone and photo library are used only when you choose to add a photo, video or voice note.

Apple Home

If you choose to add things from Apple Home, Hearthbook reads the names of your rooms and accessories, their maker, model and software version, and whether a filter or battery needs changing. It saves only the rooms and accessories you pick, and turns those readings into reminders. It does not control your devices.

Features that run on your iPhone

Translating guides, and AI features on iPhones that support Apple Intelligence, run on your device. That text does not leave your iPhone for those features.

AI features that use the internet

On iPhones without on-device AI, or when reading a photo or PDF of a manual, Hearthbook may send the text or image for that one request through OpenRouter to an AI model to prepare a draft. Your account details are not sent. The draft always comes back for you to check before it is saved. These features are optional, and are shown before anything is sent.

Crash reports

If Hearthbook crashes, it sends a crash report to Firebase Crashlytics (Google): where in the app the crash happened, the app version, your iPhone model and iOS version, and a random identifier for this install. It does not include your name, email or anything you added, and is used only to fix bugs.

Problem reports

If you choose to send a problem report from the app, your message and technical details (the error, the app version and your iPhone model) are emailed to the developer using the Resend email service.

Deleting your data

Deleting a thing, guide or photo in the app removes it. To delete your account, tap Delete account at the bottom of the Home screen. Homes where you are the only member are deleted with everything in them; in a home you share, you leave it and what you added stays for the others. You can also email contact@edwinzhao.com and it will be done within 30 days. Deleted data leaves the backups within 30 days after that.

Children

Hearthbook is meant for households and is not directed at children under 13.

Changes

If this policy changes, this page will be updated and the date above will change.