Accounts and roles

Choose the right account type, understand which audience actions stay anonymous, and know which identity appears in public.

Choose the account you need

HeatCheck accounts have one role: host or listener. Choose based on what you need to do, not whether you also watch other people’s shows.

I run a show: Creates a permanent public page and gives you the show dashboard, analytics, sponsor library, overlays, branding, and streaming integrations.
I listen to shows: Creates a display name and profile for roll call, suggestions, points, streaks, badges, and show history.
No account: Still lets you open a host’s live page, use the interest slider, and answer polls anonymously.

A completed account has no role switch

You pick a role once, at signup, before the profile is created. After that, Settings does not convert a host account into a listener account or the other way around — you would need a second account on a different email address.

Which actions need which identity

Interest-slider vote No account: Uses an anonymous voter token stored in the browser. Signing in does not attach the slider position to an account.
Poll response No account: Uses the same anonymous browser identity. A checked-in listener can earn participation credit without the poll response becoming public or personally reported.
Roll-call check-in Listener: Needs a listener account because the public board shows a display name and the result adds to that listener’s standings with the host.
Submit or upvote a suggestion Listener: Needs a listener account. Suggestions are part of the listener participation system even though public suggestion rows do not expose account ids.
Run a show or change host settings Host: Needs the host account that owns the public page and show. A listener account cannot create or control a show.

A host account is not a listener account

A signed-in host can still cast an anonymous interest vote or answer a poll from a public page, but cannot check in or use the suggestions board as a listener.

What other people can see

Host username: Forms the permanent heatcheck.io/username address. It is public, appears wherever the page is shared, and is read-only after signup.
Listener display name: Appears on roll-call boards, podiums, and stream overlays. It has no spaces and can be changed in Settings for future check-ins.
Email: Used for authentication and shown only in the signed-in account’s Settings. It is not placed on public pages, boards, or overlays.

A live roll call snapshots the listener display name at check-in. Changing the account name later does not rewrite that active board or a previously settled show.

Sign up and sign in

1
Create the account
On the signup page, continue with Google or set an email and password. Existing accounts use the login page instead. You are not asked which kind of account you want yet — creating one and choosing what it is are two separate questions.
2
Choose your side, and your name
The first step of setup asks whether you run a show or follow them, and takes the matching name in the same place. Hosts pick a page name, checked for availability as you type; listeners pick a display name, which is neither unique nor permanent.
3
Join mid-show instead (listeners)
A listener reached through a show page never sees that screen. The Join dialog signs them in with a six-digit code and no password, and HeatCheck works their display name out from their Google account or their email address — so there is usually nothing to fill in at all. Change it any time in Settings.
4
Return to the right home
Hosts carry on through setup — your channel, a plan, and a practice show, all skippable — and then land on Your shows, where anything still outstanding waits on a setup card. Listeners are finished as soon as they have a name, and enter their profile at /me. Both roles reach Settings from their account menu.

On a live host page, choosing a listener-only action opens the Join dialog in place. After listener signup or login succeeds, HeatCheck returns to the page and resumes the action when possible.

How anonymous voting is deduplicated

HeatCheck stores an anonymous voter token in the browser’s local storage. Refreshing the page or opening another tab in the same browser keeps the token, so those tabs count as one listener and share the current anonymous vote.

A different browser, browser profile, private window, or device has a different token and therefore counts as a separate anonymous listener.
Signing in does not replace the voter token with the account id or make past slider votes personally identifiable.
Clearing site data removes the local token. The next visit creates a new anonymous browser identity.

What HeatCheck is

Your first show