Ue your own phone in a museum?

chem

Hi all,

A friend and I are due to open a ww1 and 2 museum soon. We are looking for a way for people to use there own phones, to link into the tour info as they walk around the museum. Is their any app/software out their that can do this?

www.imwm.ie

Atomic Pineapple

Complete lack of information as to what you actually want/require means its impossible to answer your question.

Do you want a bespoke app or some way to display a mobile friendly web page with tour info? Do you want them to be able to play audio files or watch videos as they go on the tour and so on......?

The_B_Man

You could have a QR code on each item in the museum, which links to either a web page with info, or a YouTube video. This will require the visitors to have their own internet access. You could also set up your own wifi network that only has access to local web pages on the local network, which the QR codes point to. All you need for that is a computer and a wifi router.

The other option is to create an app for iPhone and Android with the required options.

These all require the visitors to have smartphones.

If they have feature phones (ie non-smart phones that have internet) you could have a shortened url to a website with the info relating to the exhibit. This would have to be text only.

RainyDay

Quite a few museums and heritage sites have built dedicated apps using audio, video, text to give additional information to visitors. There are even opportunities to use GPS and the built-in gyroscope of smartphones. Do a bit of Googling and you'll find lots of other examples of other apps to see what might be possible.

jgh_

IBeacons will do the trick provided your visitors have smartphones. Most iBeacon manufacturers will provide a library compatible with android and iOS and this is basically a perfect use-case for the technology.

Creamy Goodness

jgh_ wrote: »

IBeacons will do the trick provided your visitors have smartphones. Most iBeacon manufacturers will provide a library compatible with android and iOS and this is basically a perfect use-case for the technology.

certainly 1000 times better than QR codes, however it requires a bespoke app to be created for both android and iOS, that's not as cheap as hosting some content on a web server and sticking some QR codes around the place.

jgh_

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

certainly 1000 times better than QR codes, however it requires a bespoke app to be created for both android and iOS, that's not as cheap as hosting some content on a web server and sticking some QR codes around the place.

Indeed that is the current problem with beacons. I'm planning a platform to help address these issues, so unfortunately it is in the planning stages and not really going to help the OP in this case.

chem

Thanks all for your replies! Some very interesting Ideas. I'm not as up to date as you all on app's, or current tech stuff! We will have wifi on site. We would love to have audio and video telling the story of the weapons, equipment etc as people walk around the museum. We need the WOW factor and to make things easy to follow, for every one who visits.Some Museums we have visited, supply phones with pre loaded data. But we can't afford that at the moment :-( some day hopefully if enough people visit! :-)

RainyDay

chem wrote: »

Some Museums we have visited, supply phones with pre loaded data. But we can't afford that at the moment :-( some day hopefully if enough people visit! :-)

Sounds like a dreadful idea. People are attached to their own phones, with their own volume settings, voice outputs, accessibility tools etc. Focus on provide a great app, designed to be used by everybody (including people with sight loss and people with hearing loss) across the widest range of platforms - Android, IOS, maybe even Windows phones/tablets/hybrids.

The Corinthian

RainyDay wrote: »

Sounds like a dreadful idea. People are attached to their own phones, with their own volume settings, voice outputs, accessibility tools etc. Focus on provide a great app, designed to be used by everybody (including people with sight loss and people with hearing loss) across the widest range of platforms - Android, IOS, maybe even Windows phones/tablets/hybrids.

I'd agree with taking the app route, but for different reasons.

If you supply phones, then you'll need to not just buy and install the content on them, but manage them (taking in deposits, or otherwise monitor handing them in/out), keep them charged and also deal with damaged, lost or stolen devices over time.

The other advantage of an app is that it can be used for marketing purposes; people can download the app long before they visit and using the app off-site can act as a powerful 'teaser' for what they can experience at the location.

ressem

chem wrote: »

Hi all,

A friend and I are due to open a ww1 and 2 museum soon. We are looking for a way for people to use there own phones, to link into the tour info as they walk around the museum. Is their any app/software out their that can do this?

www.imwm.ie

A commercial offering is http://www.acoustiguide.ie/smartphone-applications

(I don't have any dealings with this company. )
It's currently GPS based when using the app which limits accuracy. They have dedicated readers for better positional tracking.

You could try something with wifi using a hotspot portal and positional segmented antenna but unless a student builds it for you as a college FYP it's cost would likely exceed that of providing your own readers. (Or more practically, rfid badges with a URL that can be typed into the phone, using zoning to identify the nearby exhibit.)

Graham

+1 for Bluetooth LE (aka iBeacons) with QR codes as a backup for older smartphones.

You'd be able to support the vast majority of current generation smartphones with the QR codes while future proofing to some extent with iBeacons.

I'd avoid anything GPS as it's too battery draining and simply not accurate enough.

The Corinthian

Graham wrote: »

+1 for Bluetooth LE (aka iBeacons) with QR codes as a backup for older smartphones.

You'd be able to support the vast majority of current generation smartphones with the QR codes while future proofing to some extent with iBeacons.

I'd also look at NFC as well. Not enough support for the time being, but this will likely change.

I'd avoid anything GPS as it's too battery draining and simply not accurate enough.

Unfortunately you're right, using GPS and even augmented reality, can open up all sorts of exciting applications, but for something like museum exhibits, it simply isn't accurate enough. More pertinently, it may not work at all as GPS can be very hit and miss if you're indoors and you've a building on top of you blocking access to the GPS satellites.

Instead, I'd consider using the phone camera; user points the app at the exhibit, and an image is then taken and used to get a closest match against a selection of multiple images (in the app or on a server) of the exhibits.

This last point reminds me that one thing that hasn't really been discussed here (too much emphasis on an app), is WiFi strategy; there are various security and usability issues that would have to be examined and pinned down before any app functionality that may require Internet or Intranet connectivity can be pinned down.

For example, if ultimately WiFi access is off the cards, this will mean that you'll want to minimize any network usage in the app as many, roaming, visitors may well have it switched off in the first place.

ressem

The Corinthian wrote: »

I'd also look at NFC as well. Not enough support for the time being, but this will likely change.

Unfortunately you're right, using GPS and even augmented reality, can open up all sorts of exciting applications, but for something like museum exhibits, it simply isn't accurate enough. More pertinently, it may not work at all as GPS can be very hit and miss if you're indoors and you've a building on top of you blocking access to the GPS satellites.

Instead, I'd consider using the phone camera; user points the app at the exhibit, and an image is then taken and used to get a closest match against a selection of multiple images (in the app or on a server) of the exhibits.

This last point reminds me that one thing that hasn't really been discussed here (too much emphasis on an app), is WiFi strategy; there are various security and usability issues that would have to be examined and pinned down before any app functionality that may require Internet or Intranet connectivity can be pinned down.

For example, if ultimately WiFi access is off the cards, this will mean that you'll want to minimize any network usage in the app as many, roaming, visitors may well have it switched off in the first place.

The OP's museum appears to consist of a large number of external exhibits over 20 acres so location tracking might not need the high accuracy.

Graham

The Corinthian wrote: »

I'd also look at NFC as well. Not enough support for the time being, but this will likely change.

+1

I knew I'd forgotten one. I picked up a really comprehensive testing kit of assorted NFC labels for about €30 about 6 months ago. Get one of those and you can see which work best for your specific application. If I remember correctly the Google Nexus I had at the time could write to the tags although I'm sure many other phones can too (Apple excluded).

PrzemoF

Local wifi + qr-codes (more common) + nfc tags (faster to scan) pointing to web pages or directly to multimedia content (headphones required obviously).

My personal opinion: I'd prefer to use nfc & qr-code instead of letting someone track my steps with ibeacon.

P.S. NFC or qr-code can also be used to grant wifi access if you don't want to have the wifi open.

Creamy Goodness

Any excuse to post this: http://shouldiuseaqrcode.com/