Your Senior Living Technology Vendor Guide

The senior living technology space is evolving rapidly, from breakthrough technology development to mergers and acquisitions (M&As) aimed at widening tech companies’ footprints. And we want to help you make sense of it all.

That’s why we recently created a buyers guide for senior living technology that outlined the types of tech you may encounter in the senior living space. But we figured: why not take that a step further? Let’s highlight different vendors, too.

So we’ve organized a list of senior living tech vendors, aggregated takeaways from reviews and their websites, and shared them below to power your technology search – whenever it starts. We used the following criteria to sort our thoughts:

• Ease of use. How easily can residents access the platform and deploy it in their day-to-day? How about staff? Both are crucial.
• Configurability. Does the solution offer personalization? How much?
• Interoperability & security. How well does the solution’s infrastructure handle various integrations and data transfers?
• Reporting & intelligence. How easy is it to capture data points? How about reviewing them? Analyzing them?
• Wellness focus. Does the technology include wellness courses? Does the tech seem to be designed with older adults’ wellness in mind?
• All-in-one capability. Could this vendor’s technology handle virtually all of a community’s senior living needs?
• Resident empowerment. How does this technology help residents live their fullest lives, whether related to building relationships, exploring hobbies, or improving wellness?
• Good fit for…Which communities does this technology best serve?

Side note: we alphabetized this list and limited it to vendors that offer solutions for residents, staff, and families. In other words, if a vendor doesn’t have technology that targets each of those groups, we didn’t include it.

Now let’s dive in!

Cubigo

According to its site, Cubigo is the “all-in-one hospitality suite” that “empowers residents, creates staff efficiencies, and generates new revenue streams.”

Ease of use: Various reviews highlight the complicated interface of the platform, with the central theme being: too many options leads to greater confusion. To Cubigo’s credit, the homepages for its various portals feature snappy visuals, and the company offers different ways to access the platform (desktop and mobile applications, voice devices, and kiosks in community spaces). 

Configurability: Cubigo prioritizes configurability in its design. The downside of this, reviewers note, is the need for staff to invest time in maintaining the platform so they can maximize its value. That said, Cubigo does offer a comprehensive white labeling option for customers to retain their own branding.

Interoperability & security: We aren’t quite sure what to make of Cubigo’s interoperability. While integrations with PointClickCare and ALIS signal a dedication to patient health and privacy, there’s no mention of HIPAA compliance between Cubigo’s core portal and these two platforms.

Reporting & intelligence: Cubigo offers a comprehensive reporting and analytics suite. Though it’s unclear whether this suite – Cubigo Insights – is included across different modules, or if it’s exclusive to specific solutions.

Wellness focus: Cubigo’s focus is hospitality, and its wellness content and approach to wellness more broadly seem fairly standard. Certain reviews highlight an uninspiring mix of wellness options.

All-in-one capability: Cubigo covers virtually every aspect of senior living. While we have questions around how effectively it targets these aspects (there doesn’t seem to be a robust messaging function between staff and families, for one, and its search functionality is limited), it’s clear that the platform is expansive.

Resident empowerment: Given the steeper learning curve, resident empowerment is a bit trickier for Cubigo. But it does let residents create and join their own groups.

Good fit for…Communities that want a configurable, all-in-one hospitality platform and have staff with the capacity to invest in maximizing the platform.

Icon

Built for organizations that support seniors, with ease of use in mind, Icon’s HIPAA-compliant solution equips you with the tools needed to communicate and engage with your entire community including residents, families, and staff efficiently and effectively.

Ease of use: Reviewers of Icon highlight its easy learning curve. Icon offers individual platforms for staff, residents, and family members, which helps ensure each group only needs to learn the information relevant to them, thereby streamlining the onboarding process.

Configurability: Icon’s personalization options approach the higher end of the “configurability scale,” highlighted by white labeling, custom branding for life enrichment materials, and programmable digital displays. Icon is also highly modular in its design, which provides the flexibility for organizations to start small and scale up over time.

Interoperability & security: Icon is both HIPAA and SOC II compliant, which is the gold standard for digital security. Icon has over 35 out-of-the-box integrations and its tech-agnostic architecture means custom integrations are possible with almost any platform. Additionally, Icon’s open API infrastructure means it can easily plug into your data warehouse or business intelligence tools for maximum flexibility.

Reporting & intelligence: Icon reporting has always been fairly strong, but the platform recently took things to the next level with the Icon’s Insights dashboards release. It’s one of the only platforms on this list that offers enterprise-level analytics, and new reporting features (like simple “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” prompts to gauge an activity’s success) make it easier for residents and families to share feedback.

Wellness focus: Icon has partnerships with standard wellness content providers such as Spiro100 and Coro Health. 

All-in-one capability: Icon doesn’t offer an in-house EHR or EMR platform – and lacks the tertiary product lines of vendors like Sentrics – but it offers a comprehensive suite of communication and engagement solutions that can integrate with one another and serve a community’s senior living needs. The platform’s rich omnichannel experience means that you can reach family and residents wherever they are most comfortable. Of note, the platform is one of the few to support Echo Show devices. 

Resident empowerment: This platform lets residents create, join, and manage their own groups. Icon also makes it easy for residents to share events, messages, and photos – both privately and publicly – with the help of its Groups feature and resident directory.

Good fit for… Senior living providers prioritizing resident, family, and staff engagement who are looking to start or scale up their senior living technology options.

iN2L + LifeLoop

According to its site, iN2L “brings people together, connecting seniors with what interests and fulfills them and enabling them to share conversations, experiences, learning, and fun with each other, their caregivers, and family members.”

Ease of use: iN2L leases its own devices to communities, which can make it easier for residents to adopt the platform. But this focus on iN2L-owned devices may alter the user experience for residents accessing the iN2L platform on personal devices. Separately, iN2L taps into the LifeLoop platform (which it acquired in 2022) to extend the solution. However, many reviewers still express disappointment in the lack of functionalities, as well as LifeLoop’s convoluted workflows.

Configurability: While iN2L has mobile applications, their affiliated reviews underscore a larger theme: a lack of functionalities. Fortunately LifeLoop offers some customization. However, reviewers have noted they find these features complicated.

Interoperability & security: It’s unclear what integrations iN2L has and which LifeLoop brought with it under the acquisition.  LifeLoop does tout its hardware-agnostic software, but it lacks feature and quality parity across device types. Android users note missing functionalities and poor reliability relative to the iOS version of the application.

Reporting & intelligence: LifeLoop powers much of the reporting here, allowing staff to measure residents’ satisfaction with different activities. There doesn’t appear to be enterprise-level reporting, though.

Wellness focus: The core advantage of iN2L is its wellness content library (more than 4,000 items). The library is organized by the various dimensions of wellness and gives residents plenty to choose from. That being said, iN2L has focused heavily on skilled nursing facilities and its content may not be the best fit for lower acuity or independent settings.

All-in-one capability: Despite adding LifeLoop to its product stack, iN2L’s best asset is still its content library. At this point in time, iN2L is a powerful supplement to other platforms with more far-reaching capabilities (like real-time enterprise and smart home device rollouts).

Resident empowerment: This platform doesn’t let residents create their own events and groups.

Good fit for… Senior living communities that want wellness content and digital brain games.

K4Connect

K4Connect refers to itself as “senior living’s most advanced technology ecosystem, designed with and for older adults.”

Ease of use: Much of K4Connect’s value here comes from its operating system, FusionOS. This means, once residents, staff, and families have mastered that system, they can apply it to K4Connect’s suite of products.

Configurability: K4Connect’s configurable options are fairly standard (white labeling, custom reporting, etc.). Broadly, K4Connect’s “modules” system lets communities pick and choose which solutions they need. But we don’t know how customizable those individual solutions are – and this is because we don’t know how much customizability FusionOS accommodates.

Interoperability & security: FusionOS does the heavy lifting here, as well, helping K4Connect broaden its base of partners and number of integrations.

Reporting & intelligence: K4Connect offers a fair bit of reporting (check-in alert data and resident activity view counts stand out here). We don’t see, however, enterprise-level analytics.

Wellness focus: K4Connect’s integrations with wellness content platforms (like Spiro100 and Coro Health) are fairly standard. And the functionality for life enrichment program management is somewhat lacking. But K4Connect’s smart home technology options lead the pack and help residents maintain their independence.

All-in-one capability: When it comes to smart home technology, K4Connect offers plenty of different solutions for communities to pick and choose from.

Resident empowerment: The platform offers various messaging features, including a Smart Community Feed. But it doesn’t appear to let residents create or join their own groups or manage their own events.

Good fit for… Communities that want to focus on smart home technology.

Sentrics (Connected Living)

Sentrics is an amalgamation of a number of services and software companies, including the recently acquired, Connected Living. Sentrics also offers managed IT services, a TV, Internet, and Phone Service (formerly SeniorTV), location tracking sensors, and nurse call devices.

Due to the sheer scope of Sentrics’ offerings, we’ll focus this write-up on Sentrics’ engagement solution (i.e. Connected Living).

Ease of use: Sentrics focuses on simplifying the user experience with its engagement platform(s). There’s one centralized application that residents, prospects, staff, and families all use. Conversely, reviews of Connected Living cite poor functionality and context switching on the platform. Time will tell which pieces of the Connected Living experience embed themselves into the Sentrics platform – and which improve it.

Configurability: Users can personalize dashboards, reports, and engagement assets (calendars, printouts, etc.). White labeling and custom branding, though, are lacking.

Interoperability & security: Connected Living offers an API toolkit, but what integrations come out of the box and how far this interoperability extends to third-party platforms is unknown to us. Reviews have suggested certain integrations with key maintenance management and point-of-sale platforms are nowhere to be found or poorly implemented.

Reporting & intelligence: Connected Living lacks robust reporting. Sentrics’ Enrich solution, on the other hand, scales analytics from various devices and platforms. Still, it’s a separate platform at this time and it’s unclear whether it integrates with the Connected Living platform.

Wellness focus: Connected Living offers basic wellness functionality. But where Connected Living differentiates itself is with its autonomous Temi robot. While senior living robots are still in their early days, Connected Living is attempting to lead the pack by focusing its efforts on developing this personal robot assistant.

All-in-one capability: Sentrics managed services and hardware offerings make it a clear candidate for an all-in-one IT management partner. But engagement is not the central focus of its business. While the company recently added the Connected Living platform, the platform lacks functionality, such as a direct messaging option between staff members and families. Additionally, the overlap between different solutions (namely, whether you need to purchase another platform to access the full reporting capabilities from another) leaves room for improvement.

Resident Empowerment: Sentrics offers various tools for residents to socialize – but the platform doesn’t let residents take that socialization into their own hands through the creation of resident-led groups.

Good fit for…Communities looking for a full-service managed IT service provider that can deliver everything from sensors to software to robots.

Touchtown

Since its recent acquisition of Sagely, Touchtown’s engagement technology footprint has widened considerably. Today, Touchtown (a platform now under the Uniguest umbrella) touts “platforms that provide end-to-end engagement, from digital signs to mobile apps to printed calendars.” Touchtown was an early entrant to the market and, as a result, has strong brand recognition.

Ease of use: Because the Touchtown platform was primarily designed for iOS and Apple devices, reviewers note that the user experience worsens with Android and Windows devices.  Uniguest, Touchtown’s parent company, is first and foremost a digital signage and IP Video provider. Unsurprisingly, this is where Touchtown is also its strongest. We have also heard residents complaining of it taking many clicks within the Touchtown community application to achieve basic actions.

Configurability: The configurability and personalization seem limited for Touchtown. The platform offers customizable digital calendars. But, in our research, we weren’t able to find larger out-of-the-box customizable options for engagement platforms.

Interoperability & security: Touchtown provides a range of different integrations. But we’re skeptical whether these integrations and the digital infrastructure of the Touchtown platform offer interoperability. We’re encouraged by Uniguest’s focus on cybersecurity, though, which we imagine has made its way to Touchtown (if it wasn’t a core attribute already).

Reporting & intelligence: Touchtown doesn’t reinvent the wheel with its data and analytics. But the customizable reports are helpful, and they let staff filter data easily. We can’t say how easy it is for staff to capture this data.

Wellness focus: Touchtown offers wellness assessments and the tools to stream wellness content on a digital display. And its acquisition of Sagely should help expand those wellness tools even further. But we can’t report further until we’ve seen the integration between these two platforms.

All-in-one capability: Since its M&A with Sagely, the Touchtown platform has become a more well-rounded product and ticks all the boxes. However, reviewers complain of poor integration between the platforms and the need for duplicate data entry. Additionally, functionality issues (like operating systems determining user experience) make it tough for us to confidently say whether this product could be all that a senior living community needs.

Resident empowerment: Touchtown does not currently include a feature for residents to create and manage their own groups, despite offering other helpful tools like resident directories.

Good fit for… Communities that want to ramp up their wellness initiatives with the help of in-room TVs and digital displays.

Still Not Sure What You Need in a Senior Living Tech Partner?

We know how important it is to find the right piece(s) of technology to support the members of your senior living community. It’s not an easy decision, and it’s not one that you make on a whim. But when you find the right platform, when you find the right partner, that choice becomes clear. The value is too high to pass up.

Still, implementing new platforms represents a major change for residents, families, and staff. You want to make sure you’ve thoroughly vetted both your potential partner and your community. Consider why you’re looking for, or open to, a new partner and what isn’t working with your existing setup. That’ll go a long way in helping you clarify your needs and ask the right questions of other vendors.Have more questions about senior living technology? Not sure where to start your senior living technology journey? Shoot us a message. We’re here to ensure your community gets the help it needs – however we can.