The audio guide without handsets
An audio guide used to mean a fleet of devices to buy, charge, clean and have someone watch over at the front desk. That is the condition that is falling away. A writer's house, a seasonal monument, a municipal museum can today offer a story in their galleries, in several languages, without tying up a thing.
47 %
of visitors have already used an audio guide on their own smartphone
58 %
have already scanned a QR code in museum galleries
17 %
of 60 to 74 year olds remain digitally excluded. The project is judged on them too
The real cost of a handset fleet
An audio guide long meant a fleet, and a fleet means an organisation.
The devices are bought, recharged every evening, cleaned between two visitors, repaired, replaced when they go missing. Someone hands them out and takes them back, takes a deposit or an identity document, counts the returns at closing time. The visible cost is the hardware. The one that weighs is staff time, every single opening day.
The Cooper Hewitt, in New York, lived that equation on a grand scale with the Pen, a connected stylus handed to every visitor, which let people set aside their favourite works and draw on the interactive tables in the galleries. The museum world admired it. But one device per visitor means thousands of units to buy, clean, repair and replace, continuously. Distribution stopped in 2020 and never resumed. A physical device costs money for as long as it lives, whatever the venue's financial standing.
For a small or mid-sized venue, that burden decided everything. A writer's house that opens with two staff, a seasonal monument, a municipal museum whose single team runs ticketing, invigilation and groups cannot open an audio guide counter. The fleet is sized for peak days and funded all year round, while six years of research by the Frankly Green + Webb consultancy are a reminder that the rented audio guide already reached only a minority of visitors.
That is the equation that disappears, and with it the barrier to entry.
Storytelling in the galleries stops being a privilege of size.
What the venue gains the day the fleet disappears
The first gain lies with the audience itself.
The phone is already in their pocket and the gesture is second nature. 47% of visitors have already used an audio guide on their own smartphone and 58% have already scanned a QR code in museum galleries, according to the Institut Gece barometer of museum and heritage audiences, in 2024. A venue that has never had an audio guide therefore does not start from zero, it starts from an audience the venues next door have already trained.
Then comes the question of languages. On a fleet, each additional language means a recording to produce and a share of the fleet reserved for those who ask for it, with the risk of running out on a busy day. Without a fleet, language becomes a matter of content again, and the range of languages is set by where visitors actually come from rather than by the number of devices available.
Then comes correction. A dating to revise, a gallery rehung, a work away for restoration, a loan arriving. On a fleet, the devices have to be taken out of circulation again to reload the files, which pushes venues to freeze their content for several seasons. Without a fleet, the correction is online the same day, and the route grows at the pace of the programme.
The deepest change lies elsewhere. A rental counter knows how many devices went out. It does not know in front of which work the story was heard to the end, nor at what point visitors drop out, nor which gallery is never reached. The move to smartphones makes the visit measurable, and the writing of the next contents rests on something other than impressions from the floor.
This is exactly where the core capability of Peekigo, an intelligent visit companion, comes into play. The visitor scans a work with their phone and a narration starts, adjusted to their profile, their language and their visiting time, a passing browser and an enthusiast not hearing the same story. The venue's teams approve every piece of content before release, and there is no hardware to hand out and no audio to record.
The great institutions have taken this road without losing any of their ambition. SFMOMA now serves its stories via QR codes, in the phone's browser. The Centre Pompidou has opened free podcasts, to listen to before, during and after the visit. The British Museum has rebuilt its offer as paid tours on the visitor's phone, which can be prepared from home. Three scales, three business models, no fleet to manage.
The conditions to meet in the galleries and at the front desk
A story that starts on the visitor's phone asks for little, but that little is prepared before opening.
The gallery network, as it is
Limited public wifi makes the start slow, and international visitors count their mobile data. Two answers coexist, a network designed for the visit, or content light enough not to depend on it. Toulouse's Muséum built its device on the first, a dedicated local wifi that opens the visit within seconds. What matters is the real throughput, measured gallery by gallery, including in basements and vaulted rooms where the signal is lost.
A front desk that guides in thirty seconds
Freed from handing out devices, from deposits and from recharging, the front desk keeps a role, that of showing the launching gesture. That is where usage is won, more than in the device itself, and the research by the Frankly Green + Webb consultancy has repeated it for years, access is what decides usage, before content does. One sentence and one gesture shown at the desk are enough, provided they are the same for the whole team.
A safety net for visitors without a phone
Some have no smartphone, others arrive with a battery on its last legs, others again would rather install nothing. 17% of 60 to 74 year olds remain digitally excluded according to INSEE, 2025 survey, and they visit museums. A few loan devices at the front desk cover all three cases at once. Geneva's Musée d'art et d'histoire keeps devices available, Toulouse's Muséum lends tablets running the same device. A net of a few units has nothing to do with managing a fleet.
The ability to keep the content alive
A story that stops moving ages fast. The real question is not who writes the first route, but who will correct it in six months, who will add the reopened gallery, who will pick up the dating revised by the curator. A venue must check, before committing, that it keeps control of its content, without going back through a provider for every comma. That autonomy decides whether the device is still alive in its second season.
A fit with the real visitor profile
A device is chosen on the audience you have, not on that of the major institutions. A site with heavy international traffic, a house that mostly welcomes families, a venue whose visitors come in organised groups do not have the same needs in languages, duration or tone. Before comparing offers, a venue gains by writing down in plain terms who walks through its door, and keeping only what serves those people.
Discoverability that starts at the entrance
A device the visitor does not see does not exist. Signage occupies the decision points, the entrance first, then the threshold of every gallery. The first point of contact belongs before the ticket desk rather than after it, once the visitor has already started the visit.
Choosing between the families of devices, handset, shared visit platform, bespoke or adaptive application, comes down to criteria we covered in our guide on choosing a museum audio guide well; this article only judges the move to smartphones.
What this looks like in our case
An article about opening things up owes honesty about its own side. Adaptive devices, ours included, run through an app or the browser, and every player answers the access question its own way, direct web access, immediate scanning, a single install valid everywhere. The question to put to every candidate is the same, how many seconds between the visitor arriving and the first sentence of the story.
Before removing the first handset
What makes it possible to remove a handset is not a calendar, it is measurement.
A rental counter knew how many devices had gone out. It said nothing about which work the story had been heard through to the end in front of, nor when visitors dropped out, nor which gallery was never reached. Those two numbers, the share of visitors who start the story and the share who go all the way, can now be read week after week.
That reading changes the nature of the decision. A venue no longer arbitrates by guesswork, it adjusts. An opening line that does not land is rewritten, a gallery that is never reached is signposted differently, a story that runs too long is tightened. The fleet shrinks at the pace measurement allows, and it does not always disappear entirely. The few devices kept at the front desk are no longer a fleet to administer, they are a safety net.
Keeping control is where everything is decided. What remains on the venue's plate is no longer logistical, it is editorial, and that is precisely what the teams do for a living.
What really changes is not the visitor's gesture, listening to a story in front of a work as they already did. It is the number of venues that can offer it to them. A writer's house, an abbey, an open-air heritage museum, an archaeological site, a local authority heritage department enter a territory that was reserved for institutions able to fund and sustain a fleet.
Peekigo, the intelligent audio guide that adapts to each visitor
Your works told to every visitor, in their language, on their smartphone, with no hardware to manage.
Frequently asked questions
Four questions teams ask us first.
Do you have to have an app to offer an audio guide without handsets?→
No. Two families coexist. Browser access, triggered by a QR code or a short address, requires no installation, which is how SFMOMA works, and Toulouse's Muséum too. An app earns its place when it covers more than one visit or can be prepared from home, as at the British Museum or Geneva's Musée d'art et d'histoire. The useful question stays the same in both cases, how many seconds pass between the visitor arriving and the first sentence of the story.
What do you do about visitors who have no smartphone?→
You keep a few loan devices at the front desk, sized as a safety net and not as a fleet. Geneva keeps devices available, Toulouse lends tablets running the same device. That net also covers empty batteries and visitors who would rather install nothing. 17% of 60 to 74 year olds remain digitally excluded according to INSEE, 2025 survey, and a few units are enough to welcome them without reopening a counter.
Can a small venue with no technical team offer a smartphone audio guide?→
Yes, and that is the main change. What used to block it was not the technology, it was the logistics of the fleet, the recharging, the cleaning, the deposit, the counter. Without a fleet, what remains on the venue's plate is editorial, choosing the works that deserve a story and approving what is said. The setup carries over from one exhibition to the next without starting from scratch.
Is the museum's wifi essential?→
Not necessarily. A network dedicated to the visit is the most comfortable answer, the one Toulouse's Muséum chose. Content light enough to start on the visitor's own mobile network is another. What has to be checked before any commitment is the real throughput in every gallery, basements and vaulted rooms included, rather than the throughput promised in the contract.