Terms of Service

By accessing or using FocusHear (the "Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the Service.

These Terms form a legally binding agreement between you and FocusHear. We may update these Terms from time to time. Continued use of the Service after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

FocusHear is an assistive listening application that provides:

• Selective captioning: real-time speech-to-text transcription of a chosen speaker, selected by tapping their face in the camera view.
• Chat Mode: multi-speaker diarized transcription for group conversations.
• SignBridge: on-device sign language and fingerspelling recognition via the device camera.
• Session replay: review of past session transcripts and AI-generated summaries.
• Speaker profiles: optional enrollment of faces and voices to enable automatic speaker recognition across sessions.

The Service uses third-party AI providers including ElevenLabs (speech-to-text) and OpenAI (session summarisation). The accuracy of transcription and summaries depends on the quality of these third-party services, audio conditions, and the clarity of speech. FocusHear does not guarantee any specific level of transcription accuracy.

FocusHear is an assistive communication tool, not a medical device. It has not been evaluated or approved by any medical or regulatory authority (including the FDA, CE, or equivalent). It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition, including hearing loss.

Do not rely on FocusHear as your sole means of communication in situations where missing information could result in harm — including but not limited to medical appointments, legal proceedings, emergency situations, or any safety-critical context. Always have a backup communication method available.

Transcription errors are inherent to speech recognition technology. Accented speech, background noise, fast speech, technical vocabulary, and overlapping voices all reduce accuracy. You are solely responsible for verifying important information through other means.

You must be at least 13 years old to use FocusHear. By using the Service, you represent and warrant that you meet this age requirement. If you are under 18, you represent that a parent or legal guardian has reviewed and agreed to these Terms on your behalf.

The Service is intended for personal, non-commercial use. Use for commercial transcription services, surveillance, or bulk data collection is prohibited.

You may use basic features of FocusHear as a guest without creating an account. Creating an account enables session history, AI summaries, and saved speaker profiles.

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us immediately at carl.masters.dev@protonmail.com if you suspect unauthorized access to your account.

You may not create an account on behalf of another person without their knowledge and consent, or use another person's account without authorization.

You agree not to use FocusHear to:

• Record, transcribe, or monitor any person without their knowledge and consent, where applicable law requires such consent.
• Enroll the face or voice of any person without their explicit consent.
• Violate any applicable local, national, or international law or regulation.
• Infringe the privacy, publicity, or intellectual property rights of any third party.
• Transmit harmful, harassing, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable content.
• Attempt to reverse-engineer, scrape, or extract data from the Service.
• Interfere with or disrupt the integrity or performance of the Service.
• Use the Service to train AI models or create derivative datasets without our written permission.

Depending on your jurisdiction, recording conversations without all-party consent may be illegal. You are solely responsible for ensuring your use of FocusHear complies with applicable wiretapping, eavesdropping, and recording consent laws.

You retain ownership of all session transcripts, summaries, and other content generated through your use of the Service ("Your Content"). By using the Service, you grant FocusHear a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to store, process, and display Your Content solely as necessary to provide the Service to you.

We do not claim ownership of Your Content, use it to train AI models, or share it with third parties except as described in our Privacy Policy (i.e., sending transcripts to OpenAI for summary generation, which you can disable by using the guest mode).

You are solely responsible for the legality of Your Content and for ensuring you have the right to record and transcribe the conversations you capture using the Service.

FocusHear integrates with the following third-party services to deliver its features. Your use of these services is also subject to their respective terms and privacy policies:

• ElevenLabs — speech-to-text transcription. Terms at elevenlabs.io/terms.
• OpenAI — session summarisation. Terms at openai.com/terms.
• Supabase — database, authentication, and storage. Terms at supabase.com/terms.

FocusHear is not responsible for the availability, accuracy, or practices of these third-party services. If any third-party service experiences an outage, transcription and summarisation features will be unavailable.

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR ACCURACY OF TRANSCRIPTION.

We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of harmful components. We do not warrant that any transcript produced by the Service is complete, accurate, or a verbatim record of any conversation.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, FOCUSHEAR AND ITS DEVELOPERS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO DAMAGES FOR MISSED OR INACCURATE CAPTIONS, LOSS OF DATA, OR RELIANCE ON THE SERVICE IN A SAFETY-CRITICAL CONTEXT.

IN NO EVENT SHALL OUR TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNTS YOU HAVE PAID TO US IN THE TWELVE MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM, OR (B) $100 USD.

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless FocusHear and its developers from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and expenses (including legal fees) arising from your use of the Service, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any third party's rights.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your access to the Service at our discretion, with or without notice, if we believe you have violated these Terms or applicable law.

You may delete your account at any time by contacting us at carl.masters.dev@protonmail.com. Upon account deletion, all personal data associated with your account will be deleted in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with applicable law. Any disputes arising from these Terms or your use of the Service shall be resolved through good-faith negotiation. If negotiation fails, disputes shall be submitted to binding arbitration or, where arbitration is not available or enforceable, to courts of competent jurisdiction.

For questions about these Terms, contact us at: carl.masters.dev@protonmail.com