Handing out devices, charging them, cleaning them, losing them — and still being stuck with recordings you cannot change. It can also be done with the phone your visitor already has in their pocket.
The devices themselves are only part of the bill. They have to be charged every morning, cleaned after every visitor, and somebody always has to hand them out and take them back in. One in however many goes missing or breaks, and an extra language means new recordings and new stock.
On top of that, an audio guide is rigid. If your exhibition changes, or a text turns out not to work, you are stuck with what was recorded.
You put a QR code at every object. Visitors scan with their own phone, listen on their own headphones and pick their own language. Nothing to hand out, nothing to take back, no stock.
And it is more than sound: at every object you can add a photo, video, text and a question. That question does more than you would think — having to think for a moment keeps people at a piece longer than just listening does.
Wi-Fi not reaching your basement gallery? The tour preloads itself, so everything keeps working without a signal.
Not everybody carries a phone, or a full battery. For those visitors many museums keep a handful of loan devices on hand — far fewer than a full fleet, but not zero.
And not everybody brings headphones. A tray of loan earbuds at the desk solves that for a few tenners.
Editing a text takes a minute and is live straight away. Adding a new object means one extra step and one code to print. And you see per object how many people have been there, so you finally know which gallery gets skipped.
Put a code at every object and let visitors pull up the story themselves — in their language, in your house style.