How to choose the right TV for your care home?
Despite the increased popularity of smartphones and other devices, television is still the main source of entertainment. However, when it comes to purchasing new TVs, a lot of business owners face the challenge of choosing the right one. For this reason, we, at Healthcare TV Company, have devised a few useful tips on how to find the right TV!
How to make the right choice?
The demand for bigger and bigger TVs in the past couple of years has created a major challenge for care home owners when upgrading their establishment with new TVs. In fact, from median TV Screen Sizes of 33.2 inches in 2010, the average TV screen size has jumped to 40.6 inches in 2016 and to 42.6 inches in 2017
But how big is too big?
There are several factors that can influence a resident’s viewing experience:
- Viewing distance
- Display resolution
- Room arrangement
- Viewing angle
Firstly, to determine the best size based on the resident’s viewing distance, we should divide the viewing distance (in inches) by 3. That gives us the minimum recommended TV screen size in inches. In other words, if residents are seated 10 feet away from the TV (10 feet = 120 inches), then the recommended screen size is 40 inches. In addition, dividing the viewing distance (in inches) to 2, would give us the maximum screen size for that room.
Furthermore, the larger the TV screen is, the more important display resolution becomes. For a 40 inches or smaller TV, a 720p resolution can be enough, however the difference between 720p and 1080p can be easily noticed with 50-inch screens or larger. While some smaller TV screens are still available in 720p, 1080p resolution displays are preferred amongst customers as they perform better with screens up to 60 inches (Samsung). In addition, 4K (UHD) TVs with resolution up to 3840×2160 are growing in popularity in the consumer market. They can offer superb, high quality image and truly surprise your residents. However, UHD TVs are a significant investment and are not yet widely used within the hospitality sector.
In addition, viewing angles can also influence residents’ experience. Ideally, the TV should be placed parallel to the person’s eyes, with no more than a 15-degree angle up or down and no more than a 40-degree angle to the left or right. Needless to say, sitting at a sharp angle from the TV can result in poor TV images (Samsung).
Finally, room arrangement and TV placement can have an impact on the residents’ viewing experience. While both wall mounting your healthcare TVs and using TV stands can save room space and enhance its design, it is important for care homes to ensure cable clutter free TV placement.
Why you should choose a commercial TV?
Healthcare TVs are specially designed for use in a commercial environment and are much more suitable to healthcare businesses as opposed to domestic TVs. The major difference with these spectacular displays is in the exclusive range of features they offer. They are designed to eradicate some of the most common issues with domestic TVs used in a commercial environment by offering a range of commercial mode features:
- Volume settings: This configuration allows you to set a maximum volume on the in-room TVs. This feature helps prevent patients/residents disturbing others around them by playing the TV too loud.
- Power-On settings: This feature allows you to configure what happens when the TV turns on. For instance, the TV can be set to always start on a specific channel, or it could start on a different input source, like an HDMI etc.
- Channel settings: This setting offers you to lock the channels on the TV. This, in turn, eliminates any issues with patients removing channels off the TV while browsing through.
- Security settings: The main use for this feature is to reset the TV and log out of all accounts after the TV has been turned off for a certain amount of time. This will protect your patients’ personal data and give them the confidence to use all TV features
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The next step...
Now that you have chosen the ideal TV, why not take the next step?
TV systems can be an effective sales & marketing tool for any healthcare business. While they can be seen as a significant financial investment, they allow you to display customisable information directly on the TV and even sell additional products and services.
TV Systems also vary based on the functionalities required by the care home. Some of the most basic systems allow for customised information pages, welcome page, RSS feeds, Electronic Program Guide (EPG) and advertisement tickers. In comparison, fully interactive TV Systems enable product purchasing whilst offering an enticing large screen information point in each room.
There is so much you display on a a TV system:
- Daily/weekly menus
- Activities schedule
- Daily/weekly staff on duty
- Visiting hours information
- CQC compliance
- On-site facilities (hairdressers, chiropodist, optician, etc.)
- Photo gallery
- Upcoming events
The key aim of these TV systems is to provide the care home owner with a modern, user-friendly multimedia system that allows basic TV Channels, Video on Demand (VoD), resident directory and essentially cut out printing costs. The choice, however, falls into the business owner’s hands. TV Systems can be customised to meet different requirements and only provide you with the features that you need.
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