CareTV: an open, dementia-friendly media, communications and home-awareness platform.
We are building this in a real caregiving home, in public, around real needs.
The simplest CareTV experience should stay extremely simple: a large readable clock, a dynamic camera grid, full-screen YouTube/live media, one-touch or voice family communication, voice notes, reminders and memory help. The complicated machinery belongs underneath the surface, not in the user's way.
The free browser layer is intended to work on ordinary PCs, tablets and phones. The high-end Mom/Grandma configuration shown in these images is intentionally VERY HIGH END prototype / lab reference equipment. It shows the ceiling, not the minimum requirement.
CareTV is being designed as one platform with multiple capability levels:
LEVEL 1 — FREE BROWSER Dementia clock, basic camera grid, WAN family communications, voice notes, memory assistance and media controls on ordinary hardware.
LEVEL 2 — ENHANCED HOME Multiple IP cameras, PTZ control, simple FLIRC remote control, local recording, richer caregiver tools and better hardware acceleration.
LEVEL 3 — HIGH-END REFERENCE / LAB Rackmount server, RTX-class GPU acceleration, high-capacity local storage, 24/7 recording and indexing, 100GbE fiber, Thunderbolt 5, high-quality PTZ and IP-camera ingest, larger grids and automated recovery.
LEVEL 4 — INSTITUTIONAL / RESEARCH Multi-room and multi-building deployments, distributed GPU/storage, advanced monitoring and optional self-hosted communications helpers.
The camera viewer is dynamic from the beginning: 2×2, 3×3, 4×4 or larger depending on the number of sources and the hardware available. CareTV should use full GPU acceleration where available for decode, encode, scaling, compositing, AI/video analysis and maximum practical quality, while always retaining graceful CPU/browser fallbacks.
The current high-end reference room includes an OBSBOT Tail 2 PTZR NDI camera and EmpireTech IPC-Color4K-X-S2 front-door cameras. Advanced PTZ controls belong in the browser for caregivers and lab operators, while the simple user interface remains uncluttered.
Mom/Grandma communication is WAN-first, not just an in-home intercom. The goal is browser-based communication that can connect family anywhere, using direct peer-to-peer media whenever practical and small helper services only when needed.
The room speakerphone can become the natural voice interface: “CareTV, call Grandma.” “Show the cameras.” “Put YouTube on.” “Remember this note.”
A lightweight AI reasoning layer can help understand ambiguous language, but the CareTV database remains the source of truth for memory assistance.
For closed proprietary appliances such as the existing Swann surveillance system, CareTV can add an open automation layer without waiting for an official API. The plan is low-latency HDMI digitization, visual/UI-state recognition, a persistent learned UI map, USB HID keyboard/mouse control and visual verification after every action. Learn once, work forever, with recovery/failover when a firmware update changes the interface.
On higher-end systems with storage, CareTV should add a “record everything” layer as soon as possible: cameras, intercom, voice commands, transcripts, system events and selected UI activity, all timestamped and indexed for rapid retrieval.
The public development builds are visible here:
https://8k.art/beta/_daily-builds/2026-08-17/ https://8k.art/beta/_daily-builds/2026-08-16/ https://8k.art/beta/_daily-builds/2026-08-15/
CareTV is not being designed as another closed hardware ecosystem. The browser and CareTV-owned APIs are the stable surface. Hardware beneath them can change over time.
One platform. Different levels of capability. Simple for Mom. Powerful for caregivers and labs. Open enough to keep growing.
https://caretv.org/