Terms.

This is the agreement between you and us. We have tried to write it the way we write everything else, so that you can actually read it and know what you have.

Vocette is made by Stillnus, a part of House of Troy Enterprises LLC, in California. You can reach a person at hello@stillnus.com. By buying a heart, or by leaving a voice in one, you agree to what is written here.

What you are buying

Two things that come together. An object, sewn by hand, with a small tag inside it. And a service: a page that plays the voices left in that heart, for as long as we say below. The price covers both. There is no subscription, and we will never send you a bill for keeping your own recordings.

You must be eighteen or older to buy a heart or to keep an account. Anyone of any age can leave a voice in one, and a child under thirteen should record with a parent or guardian, who should be the one to press send.

The promise about the voices

We keep these voices for at least ten years. After that we write and ask whether to carry on, and as long as you say yes they stay. We never delete anything without asking you first. If that promise ever has to change, you get ninety days’ notice and every recording sent to you first.

That is the wording on the card in your box, on our promise page, and in the email we send when you make a heart yours. It says the same thing everywhere it appears, and it is a term of this agreement, not a marketing line.

If we ever cannot keep it

We mean to keep these voices for at least ten years, and we have built the business so that we can. If the day ever comes when we genuinely cannot, because the business cannot continue, here is exactly what happens, and it is not something we get to decide differently later.

You get ninety days’ written notice, to the email address on your account. Before that notice goes out, we send you every recording in every heart you keep, in a form your phone and your computer can play, at no cost to you. If we are sold, or if someone else takes this over, they take this promise with them exactly as it is written here, or they give you the ninety days and the recordings. We will not shorten the ten years because it costs more than we expected, or because we would rather do something else. The only thing that ends it early is not being able to continue at all.

This is why we say the same thing everywhere: save your own copies. Every voice comes with a link to keep one, and you can ask for a fresh link whenever you like. Nothing here should depend on us alone.

Whose recordings these are

Yours, and the people who left them. We claim no ownership of anything recorded in a heart. You give us permission to store a recording and to play it back to the people allowed to hear it, which is the whole job and the only thing that permission is for. We do not use recordings for anything else, and the privacy page says so in more detail.

The person who keeps a heart controls it: who is invited, who can listen, and which voices stay. If you left a voice in someone else’s heart and you want it removed, write to us and we will ask them. We will not take it out of their heart without them, because it was a gift to them.

There is one exception, and it is not ours to argue about. If you are the parent or guardian of someone under thirteen who left a voice, you can tell us to take it out, and we will, without asking the person who keeps the heart and without asking you to explain yourself. We will tell them that a recording was removed at a parent’s request. The law gives you that, and we would do it anyway.

What not to record

Do not record someone who has not agreed to be recorded. Do not upload a recording you do not have the right to share. Do not use a heart to threaten, harass, or frighten anyone, and do not use it for anything unlawful.

Whoever keeps a heart can remove any voice in it themselves, which is the answer we expect to be used and the reason we built it. We can also remove a recording or close an account if this section is broken, and we will tell you why when we do. If you believe something here infringes your copyright, our copyright page says how to tell us.

A heart is meant to hold what a person would say to someone they love. It is not file storage. If a single heart is ever used to store an unreasonable amount of audio, we will write to you before we do anything about it.

Making a heart yours

The code inside your box is what makes a heart yours, so nobody who simply picks it up can take it. Keep the card. If you lose it, write to us and we will issue a new code once we are satisfied you are the person who bought it.

Sign-in is by a code sent to your email, and phones you tell us to remember stay signed in for about a year. Anyone using a signed-in phone can do what you can do, so cut off a phone you no longer have. There is a list of them at the bottom of your heart.

A heart can be handed over. Fill it, mark it ready to give, and when the person receiving it keeps it, it becomes theirs and your phones stop opening it. That is a one-way door, by design.

Emails and texts

We send you the emails this service depends on: your sign-in code, a copy of each voice that arrives, and notices about your account. Those are not marketing and they continue while you have an account.

If you asked for texts, we send about one message per new voice, and we hold anything that would arrive overnight until the morning where you are. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to stop and HELP for help. Consent to texts is not a condition of buying anything. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

Occasional notes from Stillnus only go to people who asked for them, and every one has an unsubscribe link that works in one tap.

If a heart will not work

Limited warranty. For one year from the day it arrives, if the tag inside your heart will not read, or the stitching or hardware fails in normal use, we will replace the heart once. Tell us what happened; we do not ask you to prove anything or to send it back first, and we pay the shipping.

The recordings are not affected, because they do not live in the object. We move them to the new heart, andthe old heart stops working when we do. There is only ever one heart holding your voices, which is the point of it.

This does not cover a heart that has been cut, burned, soaked, washed in a machine, or taken apart, and it does not cover the fabric fading or softening, which waxed canvas is supposed to do. It also does not cover a phone that cannot read tags, which is a phone question and not a heart question. Our help page covers where to hold different phones.

Beyond that year, write to us anyway. We would rather fix it.

Returns

Thirty days, unused, for a full refund. Once voices have been recorded into a heart we cannot take it back, because it is no longer a blank object, but tell us what went wrong and we will make it right some other way.

If the person whose voice it holds dies

Tell us, and we will close that heart and keep it for as long as you keep it with us.

Closing means nothing can be added to it again, and no link anyone still has will work. What is inside it becomes final. You can still add a recording of them yourself, if you find one later, because people do find one later.

We will keep a closed heart at no cost for as long as you keep it with us, past the ten years we promise for everything else. Every ten years we write and ask whether to carry on, and as long as you say yes it carries on. We will never delete a closed heart without asking you first, twice, months apart, at the address on your account. We will also send you every recording in it straight away, as files that are yours and that work without us. If we ever cannot continue, the same ninety days’ notice applies, and you get everything again first.

We will not ask you to prove anything.

If something happens to you

If the person who keeps a heart dies, their executor or next of kin can write to us with the box code and proof of their authority, and we will hand over the recordings, or transfer the heart to them, whichever they ask for. We will not simply delete a heart because someone tells us its owner has died.

If the person it should go to is a child, the heart goes to an adult who holds it for them, named by whoever has authority over the estate. The child listens on that adult’s phone. We do that because an account here belongs to an adult, and because nobody should be able to delete their mother’s voice at eleven years old by tapping through two screens.

Where this is not perfect

We will do our best, and there are things we cannot promise. The page will sometimes be down. Phones and browsers change in ways we do not control. A recording made on a phone with the microphone covered will be quiet, and we tell you at the time, but we cannot record it again for you. Apart from the promise above, which we mean exactly as written, the service is provided as it is.

If we do get something wrong, what we owe you is capped at what you paid for the heart, except where the law does not allow that cap, and California law does not allow it for our own fraud or for injury we cause. Some states do not allow limits like these at all, in which case they do not apply to you.

The law that applies

California law, and the courts of California, unless the state you live in gives you the right to bring a claim at home, in which case you keep that right. Nothing here takes away a right your state gives you as a consumer. If one part of this agreement turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still stands.

Changes

We can update these terms. If the change matters, we will email everyone who keeps a heart before it takes effect. The promise about the voices is the exception: we do not get to weaken it later, and a change to these terms cannot be used to do that.

In effect since September 17, 2026.