Audio Hero Privacy Policy

Effective Date: May 2026

Audio Hero respects your privacy. The application has no telemetry, no advertising, no user accounts, and no tracking. Core playback and device control happen entirely on your local network. A small number of optional features (listed below) make anonymous requests to public services on the internet, and only when you use those features.

1. Data Collection

Audio Hero does not collect any personal information.

The application:

• Does not require an Audio Hero account.
• Does not collect names, email addresses, device identifiers, or any other personally identifying information.
• Does not track usage, behavior, sessions, crashes, or analytics of any kind.
• Does not use cookies, fingerprinting, or similar technologies.
• Does not transmit your listening history, ratings, or playlists to any Audio Hero server (there is no Audio Hero server).

2. Network Communication

2.1 Local network only (always)

The following traffic stays entirely inside your home network:

• HEOS device discovery: SSDP multicast on 239.255.255.250:1900.
• HEOS device control: JSON commands over a TCP socket on port 1255 to the IP address of your HEOS-compatible speaker, receiver, or amplifier.
• Legacy Denon receivers: HTTP control on port 8080 or 80, and optionally telnet on port 23, to the IP address of the receiver.
• Local file streaming (Pro): a temporary HTTP server is launched on a random local port and bound to your LAN IP. It serves only the audio file you have chosen, and only to the LAN IP of the HEOS device that is going to play it. It is not exposed to the internet.

2.2 Optional internet requests

The following requests are sent to the public internet only when you use or enable the related feature. They are anonymous: no account, no identifier, and no payload other than what the request needs (a search query you typed, the metadata of the song currently playing, or the request for an audio stream you selected).

MusicBrainz and Wikipedia require a User-Agent header that identifies the calling application. Audio Hero sends the literal string AudioHero/<version> (https://bommerts.com/audiohero) for this purpose. No other identifying information is sent.

You can avoid all optional internet traffic by not using the Internet Radio feature and by turning off the Track Info panel in Settings. The Microsoft Store update and license checks are handled by Windows itself and run only on app startup.

3. Data Storage

Audio Hero stores everything it remembers in a single JSON file at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Audio Hero\settings.json on your own PC. Nothing in this file is transmitted off your device.

What is stored:

• The IP addresses and friendly names of discovered or saved HEOS and legacy devices.
• UI preferences such as window size, view mode (full, compact, ultra-compact, tray), and theme options.
• Your thumbs-up and thumbs-down votes on tracks, used to drive the optional skip-on-thumbs-down behavior.
• Saved internet radio stations and custom streams you have added.
• Sleep timer preferences and other feature toggles.

If you choose to sign in to HEOS music services from within Audio Hero, your HEOS account password is encrypted at rest using Windows Data Protection API (DPAPI) in CurrentUser scope. This means only the same Windows user account on the same PC can decrypt it. Plaintext passwords from older versions of Audio Hero are automatically migrated to the encrypted form on first run after upgrade.

You can delete the entire %LOCALAPPDATA%\Audio Hero folder at any time to reset the application to a clean state.

4. Third-Party Services

Audio Hero does not use analytics platforms, advertising networks, or user tracking of any kind. There is no Audio Hero server collecting your activity.

The third-party services listed in Section 2.2 are contacted directly from your PC, only when you use the feature they power. Each of those services has its own privacy policy that governs what they do with the requests they receive:

• Microsoft Privacy Statement (covers the Microsoft Store)
• radio-browser.info
• SomaFM
• TheAudioDB
• Deezer (public API)
• Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)
• MetaBrainz Foundation (MusicBrainz)

Internet radio stream URLs come from radio-browser.info or are added by you. The radio station you choose will see the connection from your PC, the same way it would if you opened the stream in any browser or media player.

5. Security

• All third-party service calls listed in Section 2.2 use HTTPS.
• HEOS account credentials are encrypted at rest with Windows DPAPI (CurrentUser scope).
• The local HTTP file server is bound to your LAN IP and is reachable only by devices on the same network. It is shut down as soon as local file playback ends.
• The Pro upgrade is processed entirely by the Microsoft Store. Audio Hero never sees your payment information.
• Audio Hero has no remote management surface and accepts no inbound connections other than the local HTTP file server described above.

6. Children's Privacy

Audio Hero does not knowingly collect any information from children or users of any age. The application has no accounts, no profiles, and no submission forms.

7. Changes to This Policy

This privacy policy may be updated in future versions of the app or as the set of optional internet features changes. Any changes will be reflected with an updated effective date at the top of this page.

8. Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy, you may contact:

bommerts@outlook.com