Privacy policy
What Havencast collects
Last updated 24 October 2026 · Applies to havencast.eu, app.havencast.eu, the cloud your speakers talk to, and the Havencast phone app.
Havencast is a replacement cloud for Bose SoundTouch speakers. To run it, Havencast needs to know who you are, which speakers are yours, and what the buttons should play. This page lists that data, where it comes from and who else handles it. There is no advertising, no tracking, and no data is sold or shared for anyone else's purposes.
Who is responsible
Lance Haig
Faelmannweg 12A
14089 Berlin
Germany
Email: privacy@havencast.eu
This is the data controller under the GDPR. Questions, requests and complaints go to that address.
What we collect
| Data | Where it comes from | Why we need it |
|---|---|---|
| Email address and, if you set one, a password (stored only as an Argon2id hash — we cannot read it) | You, at sign-up | Your account, sign-in, sign-in links, and invitations to your household |
| Household: who is in it and their role, your country | You and the people you invite | Sharing speakers with your family; the country is used to determine which tax rules apply to a subscription |
| Sign-in sessions: the device or browser (user agent), IP address, country and last-used time | Your phone or browser when you sign in | So you can see where you are signed in and sign out everywhere — and so we can spot an account being used from somewhere it should not be |
| Speaker identity: the speaker's network address (MAC), its serial numbers, product code, firmware version and the name you gave it | The speaker itself, over your Wi-Fi, when the app sets it up | To recognise your speaker when it phones home and to let it authenticate to the cloud as yours. This is the same information Bose's cloud used for the same purpose. The serial numbers are shown to the people in your household and are included in your data export. |
| Speaker's address on your home network (for example 192.168.1.23) | The phone app, when it sets up or opens a speaker | To show your household where the speaker is on your network. Only a private home-network address is stored, never your internet address. |
| Presets and sources: the radio stations, podcast feeds and stream URLs you put on the six buttons | You, in the app or on the web | To tell the speaker what to play when you press a button |
| Playback requests: which button or station a speaker asks the cloud to resolve | The speaker, each time you press a preset | To hand the speaker the stream. We do not keep a listening history. |
| Speaker telemetry (usage and error statistics the firmware sends on its own) | The speaker | Nothing. The firmware insists on sending it; we acknowledge it and discard it unread. |
| Access logs: request path, time, status, IP address, user agent | Every request to our servers | Keeping the service up and finding abuse. Speaker and account identifiers in the logged path are replaced with a salted pseudonym before the line is written, so a log entry cannot be used to act on your account. |
From the phone app specifically
The app asks for Local Network access. That is the only permission it uses, and it uses it for one thing: talking to your speakers on your own Wi-Fi. The app contains no analytics or advertising software, does not read your contacts, location or photos, and keeps your sign-in tokens in the phone's secure storage (Keychain on iOS, Keystore on Android). Your appearance choice stays on the phone.
If we add crash reporting later it will be a service we run ourselves in the EU, it will never carry your speaker's serial numbers or your sign-in tokens, and this page will say so.
What we do not do
We do not sell, rent or share your data for marketing. We do not track you across other sites or apps. We do not build a profile of what you listen to. We do not send marketing email; the only email you get from us is the one you asked for (a sign-in link or an invitation) and, in future, notices about your account.
Who else handles it
| Service | What they see | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Hetzner Online GmbH — our servers and database | Everything above, encrypted in transit and at rest on their disks | Nuremberg, Germany |
| Vatly — sells the subscription as merchant of record | Your name, email address, billing address and payment details, entered on Vatly's own checkout page. Havencast does not receive card details. | Netherlands |
| Cloudflare, Inc. — DNS and a protective proxy in front of the website, the web app and the app's API | Traffic metadata (IP address, hostnames, request sizes) as it passes through; not your database | Cloudflare's EU points of presence; Cloudflare is a US company that operates under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and standard contractual clauses |
| AhaSend — delivers our transactional email | Your email address and the message we send you | Germany (EU region) |
| radio-browser.info — the community radio directory we search when you look for a station | The search text you type, and the station you pick | Community-run mirrors, mostly in Germany; no account of yours is passed along |
| Apple Podcasts directory — searched when you look for a podcast by name | The search text you type. Havencast's servers send it, so your browser, address and account are not passed along | Apple, United States |
| Podcast and stream hosts | Your speaker's request for the audio, like any player | Wherever that publisher hosts it |
| Hetzner Object Storage — backups | An encrypted nightly copy of the database | Falkenstein, Germany |
| Monitoring | Server logs (pseudonymised as above) and uptime checks | A private server we operate in Germany |
Each of these acts on our instructions under a data-processing agreement or, for the radio and podcast directories and audio hosts, receives only what is needed to fulfil the request you made.
How long we keep it
- Your account, household, speakers and presets: until you delete them or your account.
- Sign-in links: 15 minutes, single use. Sign-in sessions: 30 days of inactivity, or until you sign out.
- Records of email that could not be delivered to you: while your account exists, then deleted with it. For an address that belongs to no account: 30 days.
- Access logs: 14 days. Database backups: 30 days, then overwritten.
- If your subscription or trial lapses, your account and presets stay so that you can come back; delete it whenever you like.
The legal bit
We process your data to provide the service you signed up for (GDPR Article 6(1)(b)), and, for security logging, sessions and abuse prevention, in our legitimate interest in running a reliable and safe service (Article 6(1)(f)). We do not rely on consent for anything above, so there is nothing to withdraw — if you no longer want us to have your data, delete your account.
Your rights, and where the buttons are
- See everything we hold: Account → Export my data gives you a JSON file of it.
- Correct it: names, presets and household members are editable in the app and on the web.
- Delete it all: Account → Delete account. Your speakers are unbound, your data is erased, and any subscription is cancelled. Backups age out on the schedule above.
- Object, restrict, or take it elsewhere: email us; the export is in a machine-readable format.
- Complain: to us first, ideally — or to a data-protection authority. Ours is the Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (datenschutz-berlin.de); you may also use the one where you live.
Payments
Subscriptions are sold by Vatly, a merchant of record established in the Netherlands. Vatly is the seller: it takes the payment, determines and collects VAT, issues the invoice, and handles refunds and chargebacks. Payment details are entered on Vatly's own checkout page. Havencast does not receive or store card details.
Havencast stores the customer and subscription identifiers Vatly issues, the plan, the status of the subscription and the date the current period ends. Nothing else about the payment is kept.
The first 30 days are free and need no card. Vatly is involved only if you choose to pay. The phone app contains no purchase path; subscriptions are started on the website.
Children
Havencast is a household service for adults. We do not knowingly create accounts for anyone under 16; if one has been created, tell us and we will remove it.
Changes
When this page changes in a way that matters we will say so on the account page and by email. The date at the top is the version you are reading.