There is a peculiar bargain built into the television. It brings the world into your living room, provided you agree to remain an audience. Uniper Care asks whether the same screen could offer a different arrangement: a place where the person on the sofa gets to speak, join a class and become somebody’s familiar face.
- Live activities, family calls and tele-care through TV, apps or a browser.
- Care organizations often buy or sponsor the connection.
- Familiar hardware helps. Training and a reason to return matter too.
The company’s origin is wonderfully resistant to entrepreneurial grandeur. In a 2020 interview, co-founder Rami Kirshblum recalled visiting his grandmother in Israel and finding her alone on her balcony. He suggested a retirement home. She wanted the social life, but she wanted it at home. “I’m not moving,” she told him. Her preference became a design brief.
Uniper began in Tel Aviv in 2016 and launched in the United States in 2018. Kirshblum, Avi Price and Meir Schreiber are identified as its co-founders. The proposition was to bring some of senior living’s activities and connections into an ordinary home. Keeping the home was the point.
“I’m not moving.”Kirshblum’s grandmother, recalled in his 2020 interview
A remote control with a social calendar
UniTV, Uniper’s television kit, connects the service to a household’s existing screen. Its published product line distinguishes between UniTV HD, designed for cable boxes or receivers using HDMI passthrough, and UniTV Direct, designed for televisions using a direct coaxial connection.
Members can also use a computer browser, tablet or mobile app. The application gathers live activities, recorded videos, direct calls, photo sharing, tele-care visits and a message board. A family photograph can occupy the big screen; a community event can appear beside an invitation to exercise.
The programming ranges from seated exercise and Tai Chi to nutrition, mindfulness, museum tours and entertainment. A person can attend without arranging transport, and choose an activity suited to their interests. The difference between having access to a video and expecting company at a particular hour is considerable.
The buyer is often somewhere else
Uniper sits between older adults and the organizations already responsible for reaching them. Its partners include health plans, home care agencies, Area Agencies on Aging, community organizations and Veterans Affairs. Those organizations can distribute their own programming and examine engagement data. The older adult gets the activity; the organization gets another way to maintain a relationship.
This makes Uniper a combination of software, programming and service, sold largely through institutional relationships. Its home care offering allows white labeling and suggests several ways agencies can pay for it: a markup on hourly care, a trial followed by a paid upgrade, or a premium service package.
Cost depends on the route into the service. The 2020 interview reported roughly $35 a month, a historical figure rather than a present-day quotation. Some sponsored members pay nothing. Ardent Solutions’ enrollment page offers eligible residents aged 50 and older in three New York counties free access, subject to a home visit and wellness screening, with Mother Cabrini Health Foundation support.
There is real money behind these arrangements. ElderSource’s 2021 impact report records grants of $25,000 from the Community Foundation of Northeast Florida and $20,000 from WellMed to continue its U.Connected program, also called Uniper. Those are program grants, rather than a disclosed price per user. They show how local philanthropy can finance the connection.
A device needs a welcome committee
An appliance can arrive in a box. Confidence rarely does. A spring 2024 account of Ardent Solutions’ work described a first-year program providing 75 older adults with platform access, alongside equipment loans and in-home digital literacy training. Participants were screened for depression and social isolation and enrolled in its Healthy Ideas program.
That example helps explain Uniper’s expertise: accessible delivery has to meet community operations. Its stated values put members first and emphasize care, trust and collaboration. In practice, a partner still needs to introduce people to the service and offer activities they want to attend. The onboarding is part of the product’s usefulness.
The copyable idea is modest: begin with a familiar device, offer a specific invitation, and support the first visit. Then create reasons to return. Organizations designing services for older adults can borrow that sequence without borrowing Uniper’s hardware. A calendar full of activities has little value if the intended guest cannot get through the door.
Promising numbers deserve their small print
Uniper’s partner page reports a 30% decrease in loneliness and a 22% decrease in unhealthy days from its Veterans Affairs pilot. It also reports a 91% positive member rating from a Broward County aging-agency pilot. These are company-reported pilot findings, tied to particular programs. They should be read at that scale, rather than treated as a guarantee for every member.
Recognition followed. ElderSource honored Uniper with a Leaders in Innovation Luminary Award in November 2022. Its services also appear in AgeOptions’ fiscal-year 2025 library-partner materials. Such references locate the company in the practical machinery of aging services, where a county agency or library can be a more useful distribution channel than an app-store promotion.
Investors funded that ambition too. In June 2021, Uniper announced a $14.5 million Series A backed by Aleph and Zeev Ventures, reporting approximately $21 million raised since inception. Funding measures resources committed to the business. It does not establish the clinical effect of a class, or the economics of a particular partner contract.
Company-reported pilot results. Separate measures; bars use a 0-100% scale.
The competition is for a person’s Tuesday
Uniper occupies the social engagement corner of age technology, with links to telehealth and home care. GrandPad offers a purpose-built tablet with family calling and other activities. GetSetUp offers live online classes for older adults. Uniper’s distinctive combination is television access, community programming and a platform through which care organizations can deliver their own services.
The useful question is whether that combination fits a particular person’s life. Someone comfortable with an existing tablet may prefer another route. Someone needing hands-on personal care still needs a person in the room. A virtual activity also requires working connectivity, usable equipment and a willingness to participate. A screen cannot supply every kind of help.
In a February 2023 essay, Uniper’s North America president Gita Vatave observed that belonging takes time to develop and is difficult to measure. That is a sensible restraint for a technology company. The most interesting outcome here is small enough to overlook: having somewhere to be on Tuesday, and somebody there who notices you have arrived.