News: congatec pays credit to West Pond for its social isolation breaking technology

Deggendorf, Germany, 20 May 2020 * * * congatec – a leading vendor of embedded computing technology – recognizes West Pond Technologies for its social isolation breaking AV headend technology. Stepping up to the challenges of social distancing triggered by Covid-19, West Pond is helping residents in senior living facilities to transcend their isolation by connecting them to the community around them.
West Pond’s AV headend systems are used to add local information channels to cable TV channel systems to instantly update residents with all relevant news and to stream daily community content straight to the community members’ rooms. Using a simple IP camera focused on a particular spot in, for example, a lounge room – so no camera operator is needed – senior living communities can easily be served with local pastoral programs, health and wellness talks from local doctors, and other regular activities, delivered directly to residents’ personal television screens. West Pond enables such social isolation relieving solutions by simply connecting its headend systems to in-house private cable TV channels. As the platform is based on open computing standards, it can be deployed globally.
“Residents of senior living communities are more vulnerable to Covid-19 due to their age and the environment they live in. So for them, being in lock-down must feel twice as distressing and scary, and hearing volunteers singing outside their windows provides only short-lived respite. That’s why we want to pay tribute to West Pond for stepping up production of their impressive broadcasting technology, which brings residents what is needed in crisis: information to the point,” says Jason Carlson, CEO at congatec.
With Covid-19 and social distancing, millions of senior residents worldwide are isolated. Nobody is allowed to visit them because the facilities are locked down. Even the engaging and fun in-house activities such as musical performances, art and painting lessons, talk rounds, and religious services have been suspended to protect the residents.
“To mitigate these challenging circumstances, facility operators are intensively searching for new solutions. Luckily, West Pond is able to increase production to help more isolated communities thanks to supporting from congatec.” says Steve Hastings, President/CEO West Pond Technologies.
The congatec technology-based West Pond platform opens senior living facility operators also the opportunity to flexibly add pre-recorded video files locally, or to add video wrapper content with local information feeds, which makes a headend system perfect for shaping to the point content. Being further able to add any sources such as digital signage players, HDMI capture devices, RF modulators for TV channel insertions, RF amplifiers, DVD players, TV monitors, and personal computers, finally, opens the ultimate infotainment options to help residents also to avert boredom by finding diversion at the flick of a dial. More information about West Pond Technologies’ headend system can be found here