At the Don nursing home in Issé (Loire-Atlantique), twelve residents settled into the activity room around a machine that gets them to sing. It is not a humanoid robot : it is a touch-screen digital kiosk called Mélo, connected to a large screen, designed by the French company Onze Plus. It offers up to 3 000 tracks, plus games and activities. And it makes no decisions : on this kiosk model, it is the residents, families or carers who choose the tracks with a touch of a finger, and an activity leader who organises the workshop. The price ? We only know one, and it concerns another establishment — in Châteauroux, not in Issé : €5 872, fully covered by a foundation.
A kiosk, not a robot
The word “robot” sticks to anything with a screen that makes noise in a nursing home. Here, it does not apply. Mélo is a mobile device, equipped with a touch screen, connected to a large screen in the activity room. A screen that is moved around, and around which people sit. The real humanoids, meanwhile, are a different category of object, and a different subject : the real cost of a humanoid delivered in France.
The session in Issé, reported by Ouest-France, boils down to a very simple image : twelve residents, a room, songs. Technically, there is nothing to write a novel about. In the room, yes.
What can it do ?
Music, first. Up to 3 000 tracks in the catalogue, from which residents pick what they want to listen to themselves — not a playlist decided elsewhere. Games, next. And activities, around which the team builds its workshops.
That is little, said like that. It is also exactly what is expected of an object placed in the middle of a group : to provide a pretext for gathering. And to leave the floor to those in the room.
Who chooses the song ?
To be clear : Mélo has no decision-making autonomy — the machine does not decide anything on its own. The tracks are selected on the touch screen by residents, by families or by care staff, reports ici.fr. And it is an activity leader — a human, present in the room — who organises the workshops around the kiosk.
This completely changes the reading of the story. We are not talking about a machine that would replace someone, but about a tool that needs someone to exist. A kiosk without an activity leader, in an activity room, is a screen that is switched off.
How much does it cost ?
This is often the first question we ask, and we have a precise answer : a Mélo kiosk cost €5 872 to the La Pléiade nursing home in Châteauroux, an amount fully covered by the Isabelle Camenen Foundation.
Two caveats with this figure. It concerns one establishment and one order; it is not a published public tariff. And it was reported by only one media outlet, in January 2024 : it is as old as it is.
The most instructive part may be the second half of the sentence. The kiosk was not paid for from the nursing home’s current budget, but by a foundation. Is this the case everywhere ? On this point, we have only one example, and one example does not make a rule.
What if a relative is in a nursing home ?
This is the kind of equipment you hear about during a visit, or in a local press article, without ever knowing what lies behind it. Four questions are enough to clarify things :
- Robot or kiosk ? The two words do not cover the same thing : here, it is a mobile touch-screen device, not a humanoid.
- Who chooses what plays ? The resident themselves, the family, the carer — or no one, and the device runs as background noise.
- Is there someone to lead ? Without an activity leader, the most beautiful kiosk in the world ends up in a corridor.
- Who paid ? The establishment, a foundation, a family association. The answer says a lot about how these devices arrive.
Above all, it is about separating what a machine does from what is attributed to it. In Issé, that day, what got twelve people to sing was a catalogue of songs, a large screen, and someone to press the right track.