British Museum Audio

We were really looking forward to a live person taking us through the exhibit of Enlightment, but her accented English is impossible to understand!

The paid tours are just random items it takes you too. No cohesion. Each of the features doesn’t provide any additional information than what is printed there already. Usually it provides less. I was hoping this would expand upon the experience of this museum, but it was very dissatisfying. Also the Musuem has slow wifi and bad cell coverage so things load slowly and then glitch because it doesn’t preload the audio and images before playing.

The app professes to give tours. I tried two of them, each of which is merely an assortment of objects throughout the museum—no directions to these objects, written or narrated. So you must toggle between the map and room numbers shown in icons next to the objects; once in a designated room, you’ll need to hunt for the object itself. Rooms are large, so you’ll spend much more time searching maps and rooms than you will learning from the recordings. The app also isn’t updated, per current conditions. If an object you’re seeking via the app is on loan to another museum or the room you’re supposed to visit is closed for renovation, you won’t know it until you walk there. I suggest skipping the app and taking a guided tour on-site. The museum has many incredible assets, but its app is not one of them.