Mitch Braff appreciates a room with a view.
The award-winning filmmaker, entrepreneur and founder of the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation has at times worked in a windowless office in San Francisco and even had a bedroom without a window.
Five years ago, the San Rafael resident launched LiquidView, a company that sells high-definition screens that resemble large windows, turning a blank wall into a view of a striking coastline in California or a charming city in Europe.
Originally conceived as a design element for offices and homes, the “digital windows” have also been installed at senior care facilities, including Rhoda Goldman Plaza and the Frank Residences in San Francisco and The Redwoods in Mill Valley.
“The windows have been such a wonderful addition to our community at Rhoda Goldman Plaza, allowing us to introduce natural landscapes that are immersive and calming,” said Miki Lamm, a social worker in gerontology and dementia care who serves as director of Seniors at Home, a division of S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children’s Services.
“We wanted to bring elements of nature inside to help residents keep a connection to the wider world,” Lamm added.
Braff noted that LiquidView doesn’t project images onto a wall. Instead, it uses Sony screens to display a 24-hour loop of the same scene, synced with one’s local time, of local spots like Sausalito’s harbor, Marin County’s Rodeo Beach, the Farallon Islands, Land’s End coastal trail and the Golden Gate Bridge, and more-distant locales, like Hawaii’s beaches, Miami’s bustling Brickell neighborhood, Venice’s canals and France’s coastal city of Nice.
The scenes are recorded in 8K video, Braff said, “and the casing makes it feel like the view is through an actual window.”
Earlier this year, LiquidView was featured on “Shark Tank,” the reality show where entrepreneurs pitch ideas to wealthy investors. In the end, the investor panel didn’t fund LiquidView, but Braff said his company is “constantly growing,” with dealers in seven states, installations across the country and an international presence. Braff said that he’s talking to several medical centers, including a hospital in Haifa, and that the University of Haifa is conducting a study on the health benefits of the product.
The product isn’t cheap; a screen with three views costs $9,999. LiquidView isn’t the only company that produces a window-like product, though Braff said others offer shorter loops and use cameras with lower resolution.
Three LiquidView panels were installed in a public area at Rhoda Goldman Plaza in September.
“Our residents gravitate to the windows, where they sit quietly, converse or reminisce,” said Lamm, who added that visiting family members are also drawn to the windows.
“The memory care team at Rhoda Goldman Plaza told me they consider the windows a nonpharmacological form of treatment,” Braff said.
The LiquidView digital window at the Frank Residences, installed in May, was championed by Peter Rosenberg, a San Francisco native who now lives in Miami. A son of the late philanthropists Richard and Barbara Rosenberg, he learned about the windows in 2024 when Braff showed him ones on display at the Battery, a club and boutique hotel in San Francisco.
“It’s such innovative technology — and certainly a good enhancement to senior living. I know this initiative would have been important to my parents,” said Rosenberg. “They supported the Jewish Home and later, the San Francisco Campus for Jewish Living, both financially and in leadership.” Richard lived at the Frank Residences before he died in 2023. “He left a large endowment,” Rosenberg added, “and when I encouraged Stacey Lewis, the chief development officer, to consider installing a LiquidView digital window, she agreed.”
The idea for LiquidView occurred to Braff in 2020 when he worked at Liquid Canvas, a company that provides animated digital art that can be streamed to screens.
“A client had good views out the front and back, but otherwise he was looking at the side of a neighbor’s house,” Braff said. “I thought what we needed was a digital window, one that looked like a real window — and that was the birth of LiquidView.”
He went on to found the company in 2021.
“I’m very proud that our windows can help improve people’s lives, and our success in senior living facilities in the Bay Area is really exciting,” Braff said. “That makes me feel fantastic because my heart is in making the world a better place.”