The 25 questions we get asked.

Yes. Your inventory, expiration dates, reminders, the shopping list and the days of supply calculation all run on the device, with no network. A single feature needs a connection, identifying a product at the moment you scan it, and it always falls back to manual entry. Reading the barcode itself stays local.

Three things, and nothing else. The scanned barcode on its own, sent in turn to Open Food Facts, USDA then UPCitemdb for as long as none of them has answered: no item name, no quantity, no storage location and no device identifier travels with it. Anonymous crash reports, which hold none of your inventory and can be switched off in the settings. And the purchase receipt, handled by the store and by our billing provider. A barcode that has already been identified is kept on the device, so scanning the same product again later triggers no traffic at all. Two further paths use the network without the app transmitting anything: the support message, which it only prepares in your own mail app and which leaves only if you send it, and the rating prompt, drawn by the system and carrying no app data.

No. No account, no email address, no phone number, no social login. There is no Hardtack server for an account to live on. The purchase itself is tied to your App Store or Google Play account, the one you already have.

Manual entry takes over, always. The lookup tries three public databases then hands back without blocking you or throwing an error. You fill in the name, the quantity and the date, and the item joins your inventory like any other. Regional products, bulk goods and home canning usually come in this way anyway.

For each axis, Hardtack divides what you hold in stock by what your household gets through in a day, and rounds down. Three axes shape the result: water, calories and medication. The score you see is the smallest of the three, because that is the one that stops you in practice. An axis with no declared need is ignored rather than counted as zero.

Hardtack starts from 2.5 liters per adult per day, 1.5 liters per child, and 0.5 liter per pet. These are starting points, not prescriptions, and every household profile can be adjusted on its own. They cover drinking and ordinary use in cooking, not hygiene or laundry, which push the real need up fast.

2000 kilocalories per adult per day, 1500 per child, editable profile by profile. Pets count as zero on this axis, deliberately, because their food is tracked under the Pets category and has no business inside a human calorie total.

It is the axis that caps everything else. A household with three months of canned food and four days of water has four days of supply, not three months. Hardtack names that axis outright instead of settling for one global number, because it is the only piece of information that tells you what to buy first.

There is no universal answer, it depends on your home, your region and what you are planning for. Hardtack offers four common markers, 3 days, 2 weeks, 1 month and 3 months, with 1 month as the default, and it accepts any value between 1 day and 1 year. The target only colors your status, it never changes the calculation.

Yes, on the water axis, at 0.5 liter per pet per day by default. A 40 kilo dog and a cat obviously do not need the same amount, so the value is set animal by animal, exactly as it is for people.

A use-by date is a food safety limit, it applies to perishable products and it is not meant to be passed. A best-before date is a quality marker, and shelf life carries on past it, the product simply loses flavor or texture. Hardtack records one date per item without telling the two apart: knowing which one you are entering is on you, and that distinction is exactly what keeps perfectly good canned food out of the bin.

Two reminders per date, 7 days before then 1 day before, as local notifications worked out on the device. The delivery time is adjustable and sits at 9 in the morning by default. Items falling due on the same day are grouped into a single notification rather than ten of them, with the first three names spelled out and a count of the rest.

No, version 1.0 records one date per item. Six tins bought in March and six more in September are therefore tracked as two separate items when both deadlines genuinely matter, or as one carrying the nearest date, which is the one driving rotation and reminders. Holding several deadlines under a single item is planned for a later version.

A “use first” view sorts your items by nearest deadline, across every location and every category at once. You read off what needs using this week without opening a single cupboard. Ties are broken by item name, so the order stays stable from one visit to the next.

Ten categories cover a household stock: water, food, first-aid, tools, hygiene, energy, documents, clothing, pets and one open category. Every item takes a quantity, a unit, a unit cost, notes, one restock threshold and one expiration date. Nutrition values, net weight, Nutri-Score and the product image fill themselves in whenever the scan has identified the product.

Yes, as many as you want, named however you like up to 50 characters. Seven archetypes serve as icons and starting points: pantry, garage, evacuation bag, basement, vehicle, cabin and custom. Categories, on the other hand, cannot be created: they are fixed so the days of supply calculation always knows what counts as water and what counts as medication.

On its own. You set a minimum threshold on the items that matter, and the moment a quantity drops below it, the item shows up on the list with the gap to close. Nothing to tick by hand, nothing to type twice. The list shares as plain text through your phone share sheet, and it is there from the free version.

Not starting from a blank page. Eight starter kits cover the 72-hour bag, the vehicle, earthquakes, power outages, everyday carry, infants, pets and first-aid. They are starting points, not a fixed catalogue: each one can be hidden, reordered, renamed and edited line by line, and the full version adds duplicating and creating your own. They stay independent from your inventory, ticking a line consumes nothing and moves no stock. The setup questionnaire hides the infant kit and the pet kit outright when your household is not concerned, so a fresh dashboard shows six of the eight. The 72-hour bag is open from the free version.

No, and nothing renews. The full version comes as a one-time purchase, with no recurring charge, no higher tier sold afterwards and no extra module. So there is nothing to cancel. If a subscription is billed to you under this name, it does not come from Hardtack, so check the list of subscriptions in your store.

Enough to judge for yourself before paying. Up to 10 items, one storage location, one household profile, the overall days of supply score with its limiting factor, the scanner and its product lookup, expiration reminders, FIFO rotation and the shopping list. Search, filters, sorting and grid view in Stock are open too, as is removing stock by hand. One of the eight starter kits, the 72-hour bag, is open as well, editing included.

Items, storage locations and profiles all become unlimited. On top of that come the axis-by-axis breakdown of your days of supply, the eight starter kits, the custom kits you create or duplicate, PIN or biometric locking with name obfuscation and a decoy inventory, encrypted local sharing, CSV and JSON export with file backup, scan-out mode, and every theme and accent. Removing stock by hand stays free and unlimited.

The purchase restores through the App Store or Google Play, from the app settings, with no account to recreate. Your data, on the other hand, passes through no server: make a backup or a JSON export on the old phone, then load that file on the new one. Restoring adds without overwriting. CSV export is there to read your stock back in a spreadsheet, it does not import again.

That is one of the moments it earns its keep the most, precisely because nothing depends on the network. On a phone battery you keep access to your inventory, your days of supply and the list of what is expiring. One ready-made list is even dedicated to power outages. Plan for red light mode, it preserves night vision when the lights are down.

iPhone from iOS 15, and Android from version 7.0. The interface exists in English, French, German and Spanish, with three themes, light, dark and red light, the last two reserved for the full version. Version 1.0 targets the phone, tablet support is planned for a later release.

By email, at atech.contact@proton.me, in English, French, German or Spanish. Reply within 48 business hours. There is no contact form tracking you, and we have no way to see your inventory, so never send a screenshot showing content you would rather keep to yourself.