For museums & galleries
Every exhibit has a story. Make it accessible to every visitor.
beacbeac uses small, battery-powered Bluetooth beacons mounted near your exhibits to bring accessible, self-guided interpretation to blind, low-vision, Deaf, and hard-of-hearing visitors — and everyone else.
The mechanics
How it works
Visitors download one free app; after that, the right story appears on their phone as they approach each work — no devices to issue, no menus to search.
Tag each exhibit, attach the interpretation.
Mount small, battery-powered beacons near a work, a case, or a gallery entrance — never on the work itself. Add a description, a photo, audio, and video from the admin console in your browser. No wiring, and no reprint run when the interpretation changes.
Visitors download the app once.
One free download at the front desk or the gallery entrance, with no account to create. Nothing to check out, nothing to return, and nothing to repeat on their next visit.
The story arrives as they get close — in the format they need.
With the app open, the story opens on its own as a visitor reaches the work, and a screen reader announces it straight away; one tap reads it aloud with text-to-speech, or plays the audio or video you attached — including ASL video where you provide it. If the phone is in a pocket, a notification says a story is nearby. It works with the VoiceOver or TalkBack and the text size a visitor already uses.
And it runs with the team you already have — no IT department, and no audio guide desk to staff.
- A real dashboard, not a science project. Manage beacons and stories from the admin console in your browser, or from the app on the gallery floor.
- See what reached people. Anonymous engagement numbers show which stories draw attention, how many visitors you reached, and how visits trend over time — and download as a spreadsheet for your board, your funders, or your next grant report.
Experience beacbeac in your own galleries.
Book a demoWhy museums use it
Built for museums
beacbeac began in a gallery. It was developed with Centre[4]Arts, an artist-run centre in Hamilton, and co-designed with Blind, Low Vision, Deaf, and Deafblind community members — so the problems below were the brief from day one.
Meeting accessibility requirements
Problem
Funding conditions, AODA, and rising visitor expectations are all pushing accessibility up the priority list — but redesigning exhibits or hiring more staff isn’t always in the budget.
The beacbeac solution
beacbeac layers onto the galleries you already have — no redesign, no construction, no wiring. Your interpretation reaches visitors in formats a screen reader can read aloud, and the engagement numbers show your funders what it reached.
Maximizing the visitor experience
Problem
Wall text, docent tours, and audio guide devices each work for some visitors and fail others — and nobody has time to plan three parallel experiences.
The beacbeac solution
One system that works with each visitor’s own phone — their screen reader, their text size, their own pace — so the same interpretation reaches visitors that wall text alone doesn’t.
Staying budget-friendly
Problem
Audio guide hardware, docent-led tours, and redesigning exhibits for accessibility all cost more than most museum budgets allow.
The beacbeac solution
A published per-beacon rate that steps down as your collection grows. Beacons mount once and stay put, so there’s nothing to hand out, sanitize, or replace between visitors.
Comparison
beacbeac vs. the old way
Museums typically choose between audio guide hardware, docent-led tours, printed guides, or no accessible interpretation at all. Here is how beacbeac compares.
| Compared on | beacbeac | Audio guide hardware | Docent-led tours | Printed guides / wall text | Do nothing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visitor experience | Own phone, automatic | Device issued at the desk, returned after | Fixed tour times only | Self-directed, read-only | N/A (no experience offered) |
| Hygiene & upkeep | No shared device to clean or charge; beacon batteries need an occasional swap | Cleaned and charged between uses | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Works for blind and low-vision visitors | Yes — screen reader and text-to-speech | Partly — the audio works, but finding the stop number on a wall label doesn’t | Depends on the docent and the tour times | Only with large-print or braille editions | No |
| Works for Deaf / hard-of-hearing visitors | Yes — story text is always available | Rarely (audio-first) | Depends on ASL interpreter availability | Yes (if visible) | No |
| Updating content | Easy — dashboard, no reprint | Re-record and reload units | Retrain staff | Reprint materials | N/A |
| Fleet & inventory | No loaner devices — visitors use their own phone | Fixed inventory; units get lost or damaged | Limited by staff availability | None | None |
| Cost as you scale | Low (per-beacon rate steps down) | High (hardware, maintenance, replacement) | High (staff wages, scheduling) | Moderate (reprints add up) | None (but visitors lost) |
| Visitors without a smartphone | Not served — keep wall text and docents for them | Yes — device provided | Yes | Yes | No |
Two rows are deliberately not wins. Story text reaches Deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors, but video captions don’t yet. And beacbeac runs on a visitor’s own phone, so it doesn’t reach someone who doesn’t carry one — which is why it works alongside wall text and docents rather than replacing them.
Have a collection in mind? We’ll help you scope it.
Talk to our teamPricing
Simple, transparent pricing
Published per-beacon rates, listed by the month and billed annually. You pay the rate of the band each beacon falls in — like tax brackets — so the price per beacon steps down as your collection grows, from a single gallery to a whole building.
2-beacon minimum. $30 refundable deposit per beacon, once. All prices CAD.
$40per beacon / month
- Your first 4 beacons
- $40
- Your next 4 (5 through 8)
- $35
- Every beacon after 8
- $25
Down to $25 a beacon at scale.
Access isn’t a feature we added
For a publicly funded museum, accessibility is often more than good practice — funders increasingly expect it. beacbeac was co-designed with Blind, Low Vision, Deaf, Deafblind, and disabled community members from the start, so meeting that bar doesn’t mean waiting for your next capital campaign.
- Nothing to hunt for. Interpretation arrives as visitors approach each work — no wayfinding maps, no numbered call-in codes, no app menu to search.
- Listenable by design. Every story’s text can be read aloud with built-in text-to-speech — for low-vision visitors, aging eyes, or anyone who’d rather look at the art than the wall text.
- Menus in three languages. The app’s menus and notifications follow the language already set on a visitor’s phone — English, French, or Spanish. Your stories appear as you wrote them.
- Made with screen readers, not just tested against them. The app is built for VoiceOver and TalkBack from the ground up — not retrofitted after launch.
- Standards, not vibes. Designed to support the outcomes AODA is built around: removing barriers to information and experience for visitors with disabilities.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Does beacbeac replace our docents or interpretive staff?
No. beacbeac covers the exhibits and hours docents can’t, and gives every visitor with a phone a baseline of interpretation — including the ones a docent tour never reaches. It is built to run alongside docent-led tours, not instead of them.
Can beacbeac work alongside the audio guide devices we already have?
Yes. You don’t need to retire existing audio guide hardware — beacbeac can run in parallel, extending coverage to exhibits your handheld system doesn’t reach, or offering an accessible option to visitors that hardware wasn’t designed for.
What about visitors who don’t have a smartphone?
beacbeac runs on the visitor’s own iPhone or Android phone, so it doesn’t reach someone who doesn’t carry one. That’s why it is built to work alongside your wall text and docents rather than replace them.
What about temporary or touring exhibitions?
Beacons are portable and battery-powered, so a temporary or touring exhibition can be tagged in an afternoon and taken down just as fast. When the show moves on, the beacons stay with you — link them to new stories in the admin console and they’re ready for the next one.
Will beacbeac work in a heritage building with thick walls or poor cell signal?
Usually, with one thing to check. A beacon only has to reach phones across the few metres between it and a visitor standing at the work, and it doesn’t use your Wi-Fi, so there’s no network to extend through thick walls. Stone and plaster do shorten a beacon’s range, so it’s worth testing placement on site. The real requirement is on the visitor’s side: their phone needs Bluetooth on and a data connection to load each story, so where cellular signal is weak, open guest Wi-Fi makes the difference.
Can visitors get stories in French or Spanish?
The app’s menus and notifications follow the language already set on a visitor’s phone — English, French, or Spanish. Story content appears as you wrote it: beacbeac doesn’t translate your interpretation, so each story reaches visitors in the language you wrote it in.
How many beacons does a museum need?
It depends on how granular you want the interpretation to be. A good starting point is one beacon per installation or significant work; a beacon can also carry a small group of related pieces, such as several works along one wall. Beacons go near a work, never on it — they mount with adhesive, a screw, a zip tie, or a magnet on a plinth, a case, or a wall. Rates step down as you add beacons, with a 2-beacon minimum, and our team helps scope the right number during onboarding.
Can we see which exhibits visitors engage with?
Yes, anonymously. The admin console shows which stories draw attention, how many visitors you reached, and how visits trend over time, and the numbers download as a spreadsheet for your board, your funders, or your next grant report. It counts views and visits, not people — visitors never create an account.
Does beacbeac help with AODA compliance?
beacbeac delivers your own interpretive content to visitors in accessible formats — text a screen reader reads aloud, audio, and, where you provide it, video — automatically as they approach, with nothing to ask for, scan, or search. That is one of the outcomes AODA is built around: removing barriers to information and experience for visitors with disabilities. What it is not is a compliance guarantee — compliance is a determination about your organization and its whole practice, not a property of a product you bought — so your accessibility lead is the right person to judge the fit.
Does beacbeac meet WCAG standards?
WCAG is the benchmark digital accessibility is measured against, and it is how we build. The visitor app was reviewed by a third-party accessibility specialist in June 2026 — six VoiceOver and layout findings, all six fixed, each with a regression test. The admin console ships blocking automated accessibility checks on every change, plus a documented manual assistive-technology pass, and it publishes its own accessibility statement at app.beacbeac.com/accessibility — what is enforced on every change, what was checked by hand, and what is still untested. The visitor app has no published statement yet, and neither surface has an Accessibility Conformance Report, which is the artifact procurement reviews ask for by name.
How do I know I can trust beacbeac with our collection’s content and our visitors?
beacbeac is by BluHeron Interactive, in collaboration with Centre[4]Arts, co-designed from the start with Blind, Low Vision, Deaf, and Deafblind community members and grant-backed by the Canada Council for the Arts. Two surfaces have been independently audited for accessibility in 2026 — the visitor app and the operator handbook — with twelve findings between them and all twelve closed. It is Canadian-made and Canadian-hosted: visitor engagement data is anonymous, lives in a Canadian data region, and is never sold, rented, or shared with third parties for their own purposes.