Technology & Implementation8 min read
Orpheo has been a fixture in museum audio for years. Their hardware devices are still in use at venues around the world, and they've built a respectable business on the back of rental models and visitor engagement tools. But the landscape has shifted. Hardware is expensive to maintain, AI has matured, and visitor expectations have changed. Museums now expect audio guides to feel conversational, work on devices visitors already carry, and integrate seamlessly with modern ticketing and operations.
If you're evaluating Orpheo or looking at replacements, you're probably asking what else is out there. The answer depends on what matters most to your operation—whether that's capital costs, AI capabilities, visitor experience, or backend analytics.
Orpheo operates primarily through a hardware rental model. Museums lease handheld devices to visitors, who navigate tours with physical buttons and screen interactions. It's a proven model: you control the experience entirely, rental revenue offsets costs, and you're not dependent on visitor device quality or connectivity.
The trade-off is significant. Hardware devices mean capital investment, maintenance overhead, logistics (cleaning, charging, battery replacement, device tracking), and a dated visitor experience compared to what mobile users expect. Orpheo has added digital options and some conversational AI features in recent years, but the core business remains hardware-first.
For large heritage sites and major museums with high foot traffic and big budgets, this model works fine. For mid-market venues, smaller attractions, and institutions watching costs, it becomes harder to justify.
Capital and operational burden. Each device costs several hundred dollars. A venue outfitting 50 devices is looking at $15K–$25K+ before accounting for deployment, training, and ongoing maintenance. Add in staff time for device management, battery replacement cycles, and occasional repairs, and the total cost of ownership climbs fast.
Limited AI capabilities. Visitor expectations for audio tours have been shaped by AI assistants they use daily. They expect conversational responses, context-aware information, the ability to ask follow-up questions, and natural language that adapts to their interests. Pre-recorded tour narration feels dated in comparison.
Visitor experience friction. Asking visitors to use unfamiliar hardware adds friction to the visit. BYOD (bring your own device) models let people use phones they're already comfortable with. That lowers the barrier to entry, increases participation, and feels more modern.
Integration and operations. Modern museums want unified visitor data, analytics that feed into operations, payment workflows that work at scale, and systems that talk to each other. Retrofitting legacy hardware into this infrastructure is cumbersome.
Flexibility. Hardware locks you into a specific feature set until the next device refresh cycle. Software solutions let you iterate, A/B test, and respond to visitor feedback in weeks instead of years.
The strongest trend in museum audio today is BYOD—visitors access tours on their own phones via QR codes, web links, or native apps. This approach eliminates hardware logistics entirely while giving visitors the experience they expect.
BYOD isn't new, but it's maturing. Early iterations were clunky: websites that didn't work well on mobile, audio that buffered, poor maps, limited functionality. The technology and user experience have improved dramatically.
A good BYOD system handles:
The economics are compelling. No hardware costs beyond the infrastructure to deliver content. Visitor adoption is high because the barrier to entry is zero—just scan a code. And because you're not managing physical devices, staff overhead drops significantly.
Several platforms have built modern audio guide solutions designed for BYOD from the ground up.
SoundLiving focuses on intimate, curated experiences with strong audio quality. They emphasize storytelling and work well for smaller venues and specific collections. Pricing is based on visitors rather than devices, which aligns with usage.
Cuseum integrates tours with broader visitor engagement platforms—events, memberships, donations, notifications. If you want audio as one part of a unified digital strategy, they're worth evaluating. The trade-off is that the audio experience itself isn't always their strongest feature.
Antenna Audio has been in the space as long as Orpheo. They've modernized their offering to include web-based tours and some AI features, moving away from pure hardware dependency. They're a solid middle-ground if you want a legacy provider that's actually adapting.
Custom web solutions are also common, especially at larger institutions. Museums work with digital agencies to build bespoke platforms optimized for their specific collection and visitor needs. This is the most expensive option upfront but offers total control.
Then there's the AI-native approach: AI audio guide platforms built around conversational interaction first, where the AI asks visitors what interests them and shapes the experience in real time. This is newer territory, and quality varies widely. The best platforms in this category couple AI with real curatorial knowledge, so the conversations are informed by your collection rather than generic.
One feature that separates serious audio guide competitors from surface-level alternatives is spatial awareness. Knowing where a visitor is standing in your venue allows you to:
This requires either a purpose-built infrastructure layer, partnerships with location providers, or integration with your existing venue systems (WiFi triangulation, beacon networks, or manual checkpoint systems). It's not table stakes for every venue, but for larger institutions, it's the difference between a tour and an intelligent guide.
A modern audio guide is also an operations tool. The best platforms deliver:
This data directly informs operations decisions—staffing, maintenance schedules, future content creation, and visitor experience refinement.
Orpheo offers some of this, but again, they're retrofitting analytics onto a hardware-centric system. Platforms built digital-first have this baked in from the foundation.
Museums serve diverse audiences. A good audio guide platform should support:
Language support isn't just nice-to-have—it dramatically affects visitor satisfaction and reach. Museums report that audio guides in a visitor's native language increase tour completion and satisfaction rates by 30–50%. This is a competitive advantage worth paying for.
Orpheo charges per device, usually with recurring rental fees. Most alternatives charge in one of these ways:
Per-visitor licensing: You pay based on tour plays, whether from return visitors or one-time guests. Aligns cost with usage. Works well for high-traffic venues.
Annual platform fee: Fixed cost regardless of visitor volume. Predictable budgeting. Better for venues with stable, high visitor counts.
Hybrid (platform + per-visitor): A base subscription plus usage fees. Common for platforms that bundle additional features like memberships or events.
White-label licensing: Pay to integrate a platform into your own branded app or website. Most expensive but offers maximum branding control.
None of these are objectively better—it depends on your visitor volume, budget predictability, and which features you prioritize.
Switching from Orpheo (or another vendor) takes weeks, not months. Typical timeline:
The biggest variable is content migration. If Orpheo's export is clean and your content is well-organized, this goes smoothly. If content is scattered across multiple formats or platforms, plan for more time.
Staff training is minimal with BYOD systems—they're designed to be self-serve. You'll need someone managing backend analytics and content updates, but that's usually one person, not a department.
Start by auditing what matters most to your venue:
From there, do product demos with 2–3 vendors. Ask for references at venues similar to yours. Run a small pilot—many platforms will let you deploy a single tour or wing on a trial basis.
The wrong move is optimizing purely for cost. The cheapest option often means poor visitor experience, limited analytics, and headaches with integration. The right move is finding the platform that delivers the experience your visitors expect, gives your staff the operational data they need, and keeps costs manageable.
For larger institutions aiming for conversational AI tours with robust spatial awareness and operations integration, fewer platforms check all those boxes well. But they exist.
If you're exploring options and want to see what a modern audio guide can do—conversational AI, spatial awareness, multilingual support, operations analytics, the works—it's worth a conversation with someone building in this space.
Can you migrate audio content from Orpheo to a new platform?
Yes, though the ease depends on how your content is organized in Orpheo and what format the new platform accepts. Most modern platforms accept standard audio files (MP3, WAV) and CSV or JSON metadata. If your Orpheo content is locked in their proprietary database, you may need to re-export and clean it up. Plan 1–2 weeks for this process.
What if your venue has inconsistent WiFi or cell coverage?
Offline-first platforms download tour content to the visitor's phone before they enter the venue, or cache it as they move. This works well even with spotty connectivity. Spatial awareness features (like automatic stop recommendations) may be limited if GPS/location services are unreliable, but core audio playback continues uninterrupted.
Is hardware or BYOD better for accessibility?
BYOD has a technical advantage because visitors can use built-in phone accessibility features (screen readers, magnification, font sizes, hearing aids). Hardware devices have limited customization. However, BYOD accessibility depends on the platform—poor mobile UX or small text defeats the advantage. Always test accessibility with both older visitors and visitors with disabilities before launch.
How much does a modern audio guide platform cost?
Widely variable. Expect $2K–$5K annually for very small venues (under 50K visitors/year), $10K–$30K for mid-market venues, and $50K+ for large institutions with premium features. Per-visitor models usually cost $0.30–$1.50 per tour. Request quotes from 2–3 vendors, always including your expected visitor volume and required languages.