Technology & Implementation7 min read
Antenna International Alternatives for Museum Audio Guides
By Musa ·
By Musa ·
Antenna International (formerly Antenna Audio) has been synonymous with museum audio guides for decades. If your venue uses Antenna, you know the drill: handhelds with prerecorded narration, visitor checkout at the desk, battery management on the back end. It works. But it's dated.
When Antenna contracts renew, museums hit a hard question: renewal costs have climbed. Hardware ages out. The experience—linear, one-way, no interactivity—feels thin compared to what visitors expect on their phones. You start asking whether there's a better way.
There is. The audio guide market has shifted. What replaced Antenna?
Antenna International built a fortress. Once installed, switching costs are real:
Proprietary hardware. Antenna devices are closed systems. You can't replace the software without discarding the handhelds. If your museum has 200 units, that's not a casual decision.
Locked-in content. Antenna's authoring tools export to proprietary formats. Moving your tour scripts, translations, and metadata elsewhere requires reverse-engineering or rebuilding from scratch.
High renewal rates. Antenna contracts renew at costs that surprise budget holders. Add hardware refresh every 5-7 years, and the total cost of ownership compounds fast. Many museums report 40–60% increases at renewal.
Limited feature velocity. Antenna evolved slowly. Real-time Q&A, location awareness indoors, dynamic content updates—these aren't priorities in their product roadmap. What you buy today is what you get for five years.
Training and operational debt. Your front-of-house staff knows Antenna. Your collections team authored in Antenna. Switching means retraining, new workflows, and migration risk.
Museums don't leave Antenna because it breaks. They leave because the market moved.
Modern audio guide solutions fall into a few buckets:
Web-based (BYOD). Visitors bring their phones. You send them a QR code or link. No hardware to check out, no batteries to manage, no units to lose. Musa, Weploy, SoundSeeing, and others operate this way.
Native mobile apps. Build an iOS/Android app, available for download from the app store. Expensive to maintain across platforms. Limited by app store distribution. But you own direct visitor relationship and can push content updates.
Hybrid hardware with digital backends. New-generation devices (Acoustiguide, Smartify, Garmin) that sync with apps or cloud systems. More expensive than web-based, less locked-in than Antenna.
Museum-owned systems. Large institutions (British Museum, Louvre, Smithsonian) build custom solutions. Only viable at scale with dedicated IT resources.
The trend is clear: software replaces hardware. Museums prefer solutions that don't require physical infrastructure, let visitors use devices they already own, and update content without hardware refresh cycles.
Three triggers typically force the conversation:
1. Renewal economics don't pencil out.
Antenna's pricing model assumes continued hardware sales. When you renew, they quote you equipment refresh, licensing per-device, and support fees. A medium museum (50,000 annual visitors, 80 devices) might spend $40K–$80K per renewal cycle. Compare that to a $500/month software subscription shared across devices, and the math flips.
2. Hardware is aging and breaking.
Antenna handhelds were built for durability, not longevity. Batteries degrade. Touchscreens fail. By year six or seven, you're managing repairs and replacements. That's when you realize: if we're going to invest anyway, why not move to a system that doesn't depend on proprietary devices?
3. Visitors expect more.
Someone visits your museum with a phone capable of 5G, AR, and live translation. But the Antenna device plays a 20-minute linear narration. They can't ask questions. They can't skip ahead. They can't access it in their language unless you bought that language pack at setup. The friction is obvious.
Modern visitors want: multilingual access without upfront cost, the ability to pick and choose content, real-time answers to questions, location awareness, and integration with their phones. Antenna was engineered for 2005. Updating it to 2026 expectations isn't in the business plan.
When evaluating alternatives, these factors matter:
Operational overhead. Antenna demands staff coordination: check-in/checkout, charger management, inventory. Web-based solutions (QR code + visitor phone) eliminate all of that. One fewer job for your team.
Content authoring. Antenna's authoring is proprietary. Modern platforms use web interfaces or Markdown. Non-technical staff can update copy in minutes instead of waiting for a specialist.
Multilingual delivery. Antenna requires buying each language as an add-on and replicating authoring work. Musa and similar platforms generate 40+ language versions from a single source with AI, cutting production time and cost by 80%.
Real-time updates. Antenna content is static at deployment. Modern platforms let you push updates live—closing a gallery, adding exhibition context, fixing an error—without rehiring the tour creator.
Location awareness. Some modern solutions (Musa, Acoustiguide's newer offerings) use indoor location tech or geofencing. Antenna uses simple zones. The difference: automatic tour sequencing, adaptive timing, richer context.
Interactivity. Antenna is broadcast. Modern platforms enable conversations—visitors ask questions, get answers, engage with curatorial intent.
Cost structure. Antenna: high hardware capex, recurring service fees. Modern web-based: low infrastructure cost, metered by visitor count or monthly subscription.
Visitor data and analytics. Antenna reports are basic. Modern platforms track which sections visitors linger on, what questions they ask, which galleries are bottlenecks. This data informs curation and operations.
If you're considering Antenna alternatives, Musa deserves a serious look.
Musa is built for the transition museums face right now. It's pure software—no hardware to manage, no checkout desk choreography. Visitors scan a QR code on your signage or ticketing system, load the tour in their browser. Audio, text, images, maps. Works on any phone, any OS.
Multilingual is native to the platform. Write once in English, Musa generates tours in 40+ languages with full audio narration, automatic or hand-curated. Collections staff updates copy in a web interface; it's live within minutes.
Real-time Q&A is built in. Visitors ask questions; they get answers from your curatorial knowledge base. No hallucinations, no web search results—closed knowledge graph, meaning only your institution's content is indexed. Museums report that 15–25% of visitors use this feature, and it's changed how they think about interpretation.
Location awareness works indoors via Bluetooth (Beacons) or geofencing. Musa sequences tours spatially and adapts timing. The system knows when a visitor is standing in the Ming gallery and serves up Ming content, not Egyptian.
Pricing is transparent: a base platform fee plus per-visitor fees based on actual usage. No surprise hardware refresh cycles. Scale from 5,000 visitors per year to 500,000 without infrastructure changes.
And because it's web-based, your visitors' phones are just screens. You own the tour, the data, and the relationship. Musa doesn't lock you in with proprietary devices or formats.
If you decide to move:
Timeline: 2–4 months for a medium museum (100–200 audio stops). Larger venues might take longer. The work is translation-agnostic; content is authored once and distributed across languages.
Team effort: Collections staff author or review tour scripts. Curators provide exhibit flow and context. IT/operations handles QR code placement and visitor comms. Most of the work is curatorial, not technical.
No content loss: Your Antenna scripts are your intellectual property. Export them, import them into a modern platform, and have a curatorial team refine them. This is also an opportunity to cut bloat and update context.
Hardware decommissioning: Decide when to retire Antenna devices. Some museums run both systems for a transition period (Antenna for walk-ins, new system for QR-code-aware visitors). Others flip the switch on opening day.
Visitor adoption: New-system adoption is faster than you'd expect. QR codes are native to modern visitors. The mobile experience is familiar. Musa customers report 25–40% engagement rates among visitors (compared to 5–15% checkout rates for traditional handhelds).
What happens if the platform shuts down?
Reputable vendors (Musa, Weploy, etc.) offer content export in standard formats (JSON, XML, PDFs). You're never locked in. Antenna's export options are limited, which is part of the lock-in.
Can we integrate this with our ticketing system?
Modern platforms integrate with Ticketmaster, Eventbrite, and custom ticketing systems. You can gate access by ticket type (members get full tour, general admission gets 30 minutes). Antenna doesn't do this.
What about offline access?
Web-based solutions require internet (museum WiFi or visitor data). Some platforms cache content for offline playback. Antenna devices work offline by design. If reliable WiFi is a blocker for your venue, clarify this upfront with vendors.
Do you collect visitor data? What happens to it?
Modern platforms collect behavioral data (which stops visitors linger on, completion rates, Q&A queries). Data governance matters. Ask about GDPR compliance, data retention, deletion policies. Musa doesn't sell visitor data; it's yours and your institution's.
Can non-technical staff manage this?
Yes, if the platform is designed for it. Musa's curatorial interface is built for museum professionals, not engineers. Antenna was similar. Some newer platforms require more technical overhead. Test-drive the authoring tools before committing.
A 60,000-visitor-per-year museum with an Antenna system likely spends:
The same museum on Musa might spend:
Plus, the Musa scenario includes 40+ languages and real-time updates. The Antenna scenario requires add-on costs for each language.
For many museums, the transition pays for itself in year two.
Don't misread this: Antenna is a mature product. It's reliable, it's battle-tested, and for some museums, renewal is the right call.
Antenna excels if:
These scenarios exist. But they're shrinking.
If your Antenna contract comes due in the next 18 months, don't wait until the deadline. Start exploring alternatives now.
Request demos from three vendors. Bring your collections and IT team. Author a sample tour (a single gallery, 10 audio stops). See which platform your staff finds most intuitive.
Ask about transition support. Serious vendors offer content migration assistance, staff training, and measured rollout timelines.
Most important: ask your visitors. Deploy a trial QR code tour in a small section of the museum. Track adoption and feedback. You'll learn more from 500 real visitors than from vendor presentations.
The audio guide market is fractured now, which is good. You have options. And for most museums, the option is better than Antenna.
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Can we transition mid-season?
Yes. Most museums launch new systems in shoulder season (late fall or early winter) when visitor traffic is lighter. The migration period is 2–4 months, so timeline it accordingly. Some institutions run both systems simultaneously for 4–6 weeks to ensure no visitor experiences a gap.
What about our existing Antenna content?
It's yours. Request a full export (scripts, metadata, translations). Modern platforms have import tools or curatorial teams that can rebuild tours from exported content. Expect to do a refresh pass—this is often a feature, not a bug, since it forces you to review and update context.
Do museums really use the interactivity features (Q&A)?
Yes. Musa customers report 15–25% of visitors use real-time Q&A. Engagement is highest for specific topics (conservation, provenance, local history) and for field trips (teachers use it to supplement lectures). Not every visitor uses it, but enough do that it changes the economics of curation.
What if we need custom features?
Reputable vendors (Musa, larger players like Smithsonian, Musement) offer customization and API access for large institutions. Expect this to cost $10K–$50K depending on complexity. For standard features, you're better off with a platform built for museums than custom software.
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Ready to explore audio guide alternatives? Get in touch—we'll help you think through the transition and see if Musa fits your institution.