New Technologies for Seniors: Staying Connected with ONSCREEN | With Costin Tuculescu

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Well, hello to all of our listeners joining us today on our podcast. You're listening to one of our Successful Aging episodes this month on the Living to 100 Club program, and I'm your host, Joe Casciani. On each program, our conversations educate and inspire, helping you get the best out of all the years we're given, regardless of what obstacles come our way. You can learn more about my club at my website, and be sure to take a look at my new training and activities manual, Better, Longer, and Happier: A Guide to Aging with Purpose and Positivity. This is a series of 12 modules in a card deck format developed for activities directors at senior living communities. Visit the website livingto100.club /BLH. Now on to our podcast. In today's episode, I sit down with Costin Tuculescu to discuss OnScreen, an innovative solution designed to improve communication and connection within the senior community. The conversation delves into new technologies, including an AI companion and a medication check and reminder system. Aimed at enhancing mental well-being and reducing loneliness among older adults. We touch on the company's growth and their future expansion plans. Whether you're interested in tech for seniors or simply curious about how on-screen can improve quality of life, this episode offers valuable insights into the future of aging in place. First, a little background. Kostin is a passionate tech entrepreneur who has over 20 years of experience in bringing innovative and disruptive products to market. He has a strong background in engineering, product growth, and startups, and has built web and mobile applications for various industries such as video conferencing, unified communications, and senior care. As the CEO of OnScreen Inc., he's leading the development and launch of a TV-based video communication platform that helps older adults reduce isolation and loneliness by connecting them with their family and friends. He's driven by his passion for bold ideas, smart people, and social impact. Kostan, welcome to our program today.

Joe, thank you for having me. That was a wonderful intro. Intro.

You're very welcome. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Same here.

I'd like to open by asking our guests to tell us a little bit about the journey. You've covered a lot of ground in your background, your professional background. Tell us maybe some of the highlights that brought you to where you are today.

Yeah, so a little bit about myself. Obviously, my last name is a mouthful, as, uh, you experienced just now, Tuculescu. And I am of Romanian descent. I was actually born in Romania and I came to the United States when I was 9 years old. So I really, you know, growing up in communist Romania in the '80s, I got to experience one way of life. And then I came to the States in 1987 and I got to experience a whole other way of life and really experiencing that American dream. My father was an entrepreneur within years of landing in America, and he pushed me into entrepreneurship in my early 20s. And I started a number of different companies, but one company that, that was more notable was anymeeting.com, which was a video conferencing platform much like Zoom, although I did not have the experience of Eric Yuan, this the founder of Zoom. But we had a great company, we built a great product, and we got acquired in 2017. And during COVID video conferencing and video communication really became it, right? It was the only way we could stay in touch with each other. But what I saw was that people were still just huddling around small screens, even though we all have these beautiful TVs now, you know, 60-inch TVs are like $300, $400. They're in the middle of our living room. They're just wonderful to look at. And I'm like, you know, I grew up watching The Jetsons, watching Star Trek, all this sci-fi where people are having meaningful, real face-to-face video communication. And I was saying, why don't we have that? And that was kind of the nugget for OnScreen. And I started to develop the technology with some co-founders. And we, we really found that the biggest pain point that was being alleviated by this amazing full-screen experience was to support older adults who struggled with the small screens, with logging on to Zoom, with all the logins and clicking, and folks that did not have experience with technology. So we really pivoted the company to solving keeping older adults connected with their families.

Sure.

And my background being in technology, video conferencing, I really didn't know too much about senior care. But then the more I started looking into keeping folks connected, the more I learned about the loneliness and isolation epidemic. And, you know, you have the Surgeon General saying that Hey, loneliness is as detrimental to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And then you have the CDC estimating that loneliness costs Medicare an additional $7 billion a year because folks aren't staying on top of their needs. So loneliness can have a 50% increased risk of dementia, 30% increased risk of stroke and heart disease, all because you're not checking in, you're not taking care of yourself, you're just isolated and lonely. So that gave us even more purpose. You know, I thought putting a video call on the TV was just the coolest thing, but here we are. It turns out that video calls are as effective as face-to-face for reducing loneliness. They also support mental health and they reduce cognitive decline because the visual stimulus, the face-to-face, the, you know, tracking expressions and all of that is so much more engaging than just a voice call.

Yeah.

So this was my learning journey into like, hey, can we do video conferencing a little bit better too?

Wow.

This actually has profound mental health benefits and can keep people, uh, healthy for longer. So that's kind of a little bit about the background of how we got here.

Great. That's a great, great story, a great evolution there from your startup. And, uh, see, not just the, the, you know, the process of providing that video connection, but all the pluses, all the extras that come with it. Yeah, that's—

yeah, I mean, it kind of goes to show you that we are social creatures And part of being social is to use all of our senses. And when we use all of our senses, it keeps our brain functioning versus, you know, there's studies that show that folks with hearing loss, they also experience a form of social isolation because they are less engaged in conversation. And that also increases their risk for dementia. And that's why hearing aids are very important if you're experiencing hearing loss. So, you know, to bring the visual connection, to keep folks socially connected, like grandparents seeing their grandkids. Our solution allows sending pictures and videos directly to the TV where the older adult doesn't have to mess with technology or apps or anything in any way. We just think that's, that's a phenomenal solution for this loneliness problem.

Yeah, well, I agree 100%. That whole concept of social engagement and connection really promotes longevity, and it does inhibit the risk of dementia. We know that there's a lot of modifiable risk factors for dementia, like hearing loss, things that we do have control over, and social connection and engagement is really crucial for longevity. So You're definitely on the right track. Yeah, right channel.

That's right. That's right. And I think, you know, we did have these surveys that we've taken with our customer base that I could just jump into a little bit since we're on the topic. So, you know, we're a small company, early-stage technology startup, but we do have a very engaged customer base and we put out some surveys out there. We got several dozen folks who actually respond to surveys. It's kind of funny nowadays to send out emails and encourage people to do stuff. You get a pretty low response rate, but we got a pretty good response rate here. And we had some questions in there that were pretty, pretty simple. And we asked basically the family members who bought this for their parents. We asked them, do you believe that Onscreen is reducing loneliness for your loved one? And 0% responded not at all. 12% responded I don't know. And then 28% responded somewhat and 58% responded very much so. And in summary, like 88% of the family members believe that it is reducing their loneliness of their parent. Yeah. And, you know, sure, it's really important because For one, it is the younger generation that is applying all this new technology, and it's great to see them, that they believe it's really helping their parents.

Yeah, well, let's jump into some of the specifics. Um, how does it work? How does it— how does it get set up? Who's it used for? And, you know, what's the process?

Yeah, yeah. So our vision was to just take your, your typical TV and turn it into something much more than that, turn it into a two-way communication portal. So we've created this device and it's a pretty small device. It's, you know, it has a built-in camera, it has built-in microphones, and it hooks up right to the top of the TV and it's able to see the entire room. And the hookup process is really simple, is just like setting up an Apple TV or Roku. It's just one cable that goes into the TV and one cable that goes into the power, and that's it. And now you have a TV that is able to do communication and keep your older loved one connected without them having to do absolutely anything. Well, so, so yeah, real simple thing. I'll bring it up close for the camera here. It's a nice, nice product. And then we also have a very simple remote. So the remote gives you one button to call your number one contact, gives you one button to leave video messages. So you can also send video messages to your adult children saying, "Hey, I'm looking forward to seeing you guys this weekend and I'm feeling great," or, "Hey, I'm not feeling so great. My arm hurts right here." So take advantage of that powerful video medium. In addition, we also make it very easy to switch to make sure you're able to watch your favorite TV programs. And we also have an AI companion that can be summoned to support the older adult.

So who are your users right now? What's your, what's your audience?

Yeah, so our primary customer base are adult children of folks that are on average in their 80s. The parents, some of them are aging in place, some of them are independent living, some of them are in assisted living. And some of them even have early stage or mid, middle stage dementia. And the reason they choose our product is because the— on the parent side, if they have early stage dementia and they're no longer able to even answer their normal phone, our, our device fully automates the calling process. So the, the younger generation, the adult children, they use their mobile device. And it's like placing a FaceTime call using the OnScreen mobile app. But on the older adult side, the TV comes on automatically. They don't have to touch anything. It just— we can turn the TV on and then it says, "Costin is calling, automatically answering in 30 seconds." And it shows a nice little countdown. And then boom, I'm on the TV and I can see my parents and they can see me and I'm big, big as the day from the phone, from the caller's phone, from the— uh, well, yeah, so I, I'm calling using my phone, I'm calling using my phone, but I show up— yeah, yeah, my image shows up on their TV, uh, full screen.

Yeah, so you can have any number of people and children or spouse, any, any number of people looking into the phone, and that's what's shown on the, on the—

absolutely, absolutely. And it's— I'll tell you, it's, it's a really delightful experience to just capture the kids and blow them up full screen like that. Uh, that's amazing. And then we also support Zoom. So for situations where you have, let's say, siblings throughout the country and you got mom living somewhere kind of remote, uh, we have customers that set up a Zoom call every Sunday. All the siblings and the grandkids, they get together on the Zoom and then they join mom to the Zoom. You can do that simply by using our mobile app, and then it remotely controls the on-screen device again. So you can have Mom seeing just about everybody all on the screen at the same time without, you know, all the hassle of trying to get Mom to click on the link and enter the meeting code and doing all of that stuff.

Well, well, and most of these individuals are, are solo agers, or are they married, or they still have a spouse? In the home, or most of our customers, they are alone.

So on the senior side, you know, the, the adult children have some concern about their parents and they're buying this product so they can see them and get peace of mind that way. But yeah, there's usually kind of— they're slowing down a little bit and they're usually alone.

Sure, sure. Yeah, I like the part about it just being so automated where the person doesn't have to look and see who's calling and press the buttons to answer. Yeah, so it just comes on. It's programmed to come on at a certain time, of course.

Yeah, yeah. Well, um, it's, it's, it's set up with a closed family circle, so only the people in the closed family circle can, uh, call. And then it can also be set up where the auto answering only works during certain hours. So, you know, Mom doesn't want to get calls after 8. They It could be set up where auto answering only works from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM.

Sure.

That's it.

Perfect. Yeah, that's perfect. And the technology is very simple then. You have that one piece that acts as a camera and microphone, and you have the remote. Yeah. That's it.

Yeah. And a lot of our customers never even touch the remote. It's made to function without the need for the remote. So that's really key in being able to support some of the folks that are experiencing cognitive decline. Yeah. So yeah, it's really all about ease of use and that full-screen experience that's great for declining vision or declining hearing.

And are you finding yourself in assisted living facilities, senior living communities, or are these mostly people still living in their own homes in the community?

Yeah, most of our customers are individual buyers. Buying it for wherever mom or dad are. And it is a pretty even split between living at home versus living in a senior living community. However, I will note, um, so we had a really amazing milestone this year. We were invited to CES to pitch at the AARP pitch competition. They have an age tech pitch competition, and we won. So we were really lucky. There were hundreds of people there. We got to pitch the company and we won. And part of that, we got accepted into the AARP AgeTech Collaborative Accelerator, which is a phenomenal ecosystem for startups, for large companies, for investors that are all trying to support the aging population. You know, it's becoming a very big economy. The aging population is something that we're going to need solutions to. You know, there's a caregiver shortage. There's all kinds of things that we need to support. So AARP is working on this. And also by being part of this collaborative, we've been able to get connected with a lot of fantastic senior living communities. And now they're testing our products and they're seeing how well it works broadly deployed to the residents in the community.

Wow. Wow.

That's very exciting as well.

Yeah. So you'll get some more outcomes data from that, of course, which is so important. How is it affecting the individual users? What's the benefit? What are the upsides? That's huge. That's huge.

The irony is that even though there's a community of a lot of people, there's still a lot of loneliness. And anecdotally speaking, I've heard that there's still even like some, some high school behavior where if you're new, you know, you're, you're moving in new into a community and you don't know a lot of people, there may be cliques already formed. So it's hard to break in. And, you know, so being able to stay connected with your family and your loved ones is still very, very important, even in these communities that have built-in activities, built-in groups.

Yeah, because not everyone moving into a senior living community is ready for that group dining and activities and social events and all of that. They're used to living at home with neighbors and, you know, some family members. So it's, it's a big change.

Yeah, exactly right. So, so we are hoping to reduce isolation there at those locations. And then we're also, um, you know, working with some healthcare opportunities as well. So being able to send you know, having healthcare providers that, you know, support geriatric care, long-term care, they can send an OnscreenHome with a patient and be able to do telehealth visits very easily, you know, on a weekly basis. Whereas maybe you would only see this patient every couple of months. Now you can check in, see how the medication's working, Um, we haven't talked about the AI companion yet. I'm sure we will.

That's my next question.

Yeah, yeah, I think it'll also be very helpful for healthcare use cases to, uh, prevent emergency room visits, prevent situations from going uncaught.

Yeah, yeah. I was, you know, I had a large clinical practice years ago and, um, telemedicine was just coming into play and we were setting up telepsychotherapy sessions and remote connections, and the seniors were very involved. And these are all in skilled nursing homes, so they were still very involved and connected and easily engaged in the process. So this just takes it another level higher, which is great. That's super cool.

Well, and it makes it so that you don't need somebody to help you with a tablet or help you log into that telehealth session, you know.

Yeah, that was a barrier for us. Yeah.

Exactly.

There's—

as simple as these tools have gotten, you know, even something as simple as an operating system update can throw a monkey wrench into this. So our stuff's always predictable, always automated. It'll automatically drop you into your telehealth visit. So, you know, we're really hoping that we see some adoption as well in healthcare.

Yeah, that's great. So tell us about the AI Companion. Where does that fit in?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So everyone's talking about AI. AI is an exciting thing, but it's also a little bit of a scary thing. We at OnScreen think it's going to be incredibly helpful to support the aging population. And so what we built is a really friendly persona named Joy, and Joy can be set up to check in on your— the older loved one, you know, multiple times per day with simple interactions such as, have you taken your medication? Have you had breakfast yet? Have you had a chance to take a shower? Do you have any pain today? What's your mood? And collect all of this information in a conversational, simple interaction. She can also just chat, you know, she can just come, come on the TV and say, good morning, Sally. Anything new going on in your life that you'd like to talk about? And then you just chat with Joy. Yeah, she does get to know you. She remembers every conversation you have, so it becomes very engaging. And then aside from like all of these health check-ins and very practical things, we've built in fun things as well. Like she can tell you jokes. She can play trivia with you, can give you brain teasers. And most recently, we've built the ability to paint with Joy. And painting with Joy is simply— it's kind of like an interview process. Hey Joy, let's paint the picture together. Or Joy would actually initiate that, say, hey, would you like to paint with me? As something that could be fun. And Uh, should I— okay, well, would you like to paint? What should be in the foreground? What should be in the background? What's the style? And then Joy generates a full painting. Yes, that shows up on the TV, and it's very, very cool.

I used, um, I use ChatGPT more and more these days, and I love it. And I actually had it create a cartoon for me because I, I'm not— I can't draw. For anything, but I do have these images with funny lines, and I had to create the cartoon. And within the second try, it was just a perfect cartoon. Nobody could have done it better in terms of what I envisioned for this particular, you know, comic line. So yeah, I can see the advantages of having Joy help to paint. It's remarkable.

Yeah, I can even show you here if I can load it up and hold it up to the camera., you know, so earlier it was, okay, let's paint a Van Gogh style, Van Gogh style surfing competition. This is what we got, you know, and it's really, really cool. And the cool thing about it also, when you do some of these AI interactions, the family gets notified. So the family is, you know, receives the painting that grandma made. And it's really a talking point and something to bond over.

Engaging and challenging, mentally challenging, or creating some cognitive demand and creativity. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Exactly. And the medication reminder, and that's also part of joy, checking in.

So the medication reminders are set up by the family to say, okay, 9:00 AM, take, you know, take the, the red pill, you know, noon take this pill. And these are just text messages that can pop up on the TV to remind. But Joy can also be set up, say, 15 minutes later to ask, have you taken your medication?

Yeah.

And then she'll collect the answer. And the beauty of that is the family member then can see, you know, in the mobile app Okay, did they take it? Is there any pain, etc.? So now, now the family who's kind of worried about Mom, they can get these, these alerts if Mom hasn't taken her medication or anything like that.

Yeah, and it's easier on the adult children, of course, so they don't have to check in on these day-to-day events, but they're using the technology, and I'm sure it's not as intrusive for Joy to ask as it is for the adult daughter to, to call and ask.

Yeah, when, when the adult daughter is calling, it's a little more like nagging.

Yes, sure.

Yeah, you know, where as Joy, she is always patient, always charming, um, and, and just, you know, it becomes more like a pal.

Yeah.

Um, and Joe, I can send you a couple of videos. I don't know if we can splice it into to the podcast, or we can link— maybe we can link to some demos.

I can probably add it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Because I can imagine, you know, I'm describing with words what this is, but the visual experience is really powerful.

Well, you said something important too about the information growing that's in the profile of the adult senior. And Joy comes to get a fuller and fuller picture with all of this new information. So that, that, that's used to check on things or, you know, make some reminders or, you know, bring up a joke from 2 weeks ago. All of that, it just builds that profile. That's the beauty of AI, I think. I love that. Yeah. Yeah.

And really, the beauty for me is that there is a caregiver shortage. There's a shortage of time for humans, you know, those adult children, they're the sandwich generation. They probably have teenage children and they got demanding jobs. Now we can lean on AI a little bit to provide, you know, emotional support, cognitive support. It can check in, it can have conversations, it can really be an augmentation as the caregiver.

Sure, sure.

It's incredibly powerful. Yeah. And we can have one for everybody.

Yeah, yeah, extending the reach of the human. I mean, humans are important, of course. Caregivers would love to have real, you know, availability of these special services, but it's not possible. So, yeah, they're limited supply, reach out through technology. So what kind of challenges or barriers have you encountered as you deploy these technologies, especially with the senior users?

Yeah, I mean, it's all really, really new. We still have work to do to just perfect the way the timing of the conversation works. Sometimes we'll have Joy not listen long enough and cut off the person and say, are you talking? Are you saying something? When the person is just thinking about their response. So there is work to be done there. But just, you know, just with anything like how many rockets did SpaceX blow up before they actually reached orbit? Sure. Sure. We don't want to blow anybody up, but it's, it's an iterative process to nail these things.

Yeah, you keep getting up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And tell me, I know you— we spoke earlier and you mentioned this project with the New York State Office for Aging. That's a partnership of some kind. Tell our listeners about that.

Yeah, so, uh, the New York State Office for the Aging is a very innovative group. Um, they, they are in charge of all the local area agencies on aging, which in turn give out resources and help support the local communities. So at the state level, their leadership is incredibly innovative. They work with a lot of startups. Greg Olson, he's a phenomenal leader there. And, you know, they saw what we're doing and they said, hey, we really want to put this out in the community. So they are— they're sponsoring 100 on-screen units that are going to go into upstate New York, which is quite rural. They're going to be distributed through a healthcare office in the city of Malone. And these folks are, you know, they're isolated. Their family is far away, but they're picking up the bill for 100 of these devices for a year. And we're going to be studying things like, you know, asking the senior their loneliness before on-screen and at different intervals to see really through their methodology if we can show similar results. We want to show whether or not those with on-screen had less emergency room visits, ER visits, and just general health and well-being by making it easy for the, for the doctor's office to stay easily connected with seniors.

Yeah, so that's a good way to monitor the health status and any declines and to see if there's any, you know, minimization of that decline when these systems are in place. Yeah, smart.

That's right.

That's right. Yeah, I've always been concerned about outcomes, you know, psychology and all that. So I've always been concerned about what are we doing and does it really make a difference? So I'm so glad to hear that you are looking at these surveys and participation reports and the objective evaluations, you're going to have some good metrics there to study. That's great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's exciting to work with such a professional organization, official organization. And we're excited to show that reducing loneliness improves health outcomes and potentially having an AI companion there can, can help support older adults as we age in place. So there's a lot that we're going to be learning from this.

Wow, that's great. So how does someone get started?

Yeah, well, um, we are selling through our website, so you can just go to our website. It's onscreeninc.com. So onscreeninc.com. You can also find us on Amazon. We're actually on sale today because it's Prime Deal Days.

Good for you.

Yeah, you could pick it— pick up an on-screen device for $69.99. And then our monthly— we do have a monthly, uh, service plan, and it's $29.99. So really, for less than a dollar a day, you know, you get the peace of mind, you get the visual connection, um, and it's, you know, really helps keep families connected and reduce that loneliness.

So it's all user-friendly. You don't need to talk with a salesperson. You don't need to go on site and order anything. You can go directly and buy the equipment yourself and set it up yourself.

Wow. That's right. Yeah, it's just go to the website, we'll ship it out to you. The instructions are very simple, but we do also offer scheduling so you can schedule an installation on the phone.

Okay.

And we'll have one of our reps on the phone. I wouldn't recommend for like the 75-year-old trying to get behind the TV and hooking it up. But anybody who can hook up a Roku or a DVD player to a TV can install OnScreen.

That's great. And the website is onscreeninc.com. That's right. It's available on Amazon. And if someone goes to Amazon, they just look for the OnScreen?

Yeah, just search OnScreen video calling, something like that.

And it's on sale today.

Yeah, and it's on sale today.

That's good for you. Well, uh, Kostan, it looks like we're out of time for today, but before we wrap up, I just want to remind my listeners to visit my website, living200.club, sign up for my email list, and download a free copy of my 9 Tips to Make Living Longer Enjoyable. And if you're affiliated with a senior living setting, be sure to look for my new training manual and activity guide, Better, Longer, and Happier. Costin, thanks so much for being a guest on our show today. Much appreciated.

Yeah, Joe, thank you so much. It was an honor. Thank you.

You're, you're very welcome. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.