When you stand in front of the “Mona Lisa” exhibition hall at the Louvre in Paris, surrounded by tourists from all over the world, the sounds of camera shutters and low murmurs blend into a cacophony; the voice of the traditional guide is drowned out by the crowd. You stretch your neck and raise your ears, but can only catch fragmented words like “Renaissance” . When you want to ask “Why does this painting have crack repair marks?”, you can’t even get close to the guide’s figure – this is probably the common predicament of most overseas visitors when visiting museums.
Language barriers, noise interference, lack of interaction, and restricted pace have turned the museum’s supposed “cultural dialogue” into a cursory “check-in”. Until the Yingmi 008B two-way wireless tour guide system appeared, this awkward visiting experience was completely rewritten. Recently, I visited several venues such as the Palace Museum in Beijing, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the National Museum of Tokyo, experiencing firsthand how this device became a personal bridge between overseas visitors and the artifacts, and also listening to countless real feedback from tourists and staff.
The Four Major Challenges of Traditional Museum Tours
Before experiencing the 008B, I first talked to several overseas visitors about their museum experiences. French photographer Pierre said that when he visited the Palace Museum in Beijing last year, he followed a Chinese tour group, “Although there were paper English introductions, the guide’s detailed explanations were more vivid, but I could only rely on my companions to occasionally translate, and many interesting stories were missed”; American student Lily quipped about the crowdedness of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: “In the popular exhibition halls, the guide has to speak to dozens of people, and I was in the back row, basically couldn’t hear clearly. I wanted to ask ‘What does this blue and white porcelain pattern symbolize?’, but there was no chance to speak.” These feedbacks precisely hit the “four major challenges” of the traditional tour mode:
Language barrier
Most museum on-site explanations are in the local language, even if there is an English explanation, there are often problems like “few sessions, difficult to make reservations”, and small language minority tourists can only rely on text descriptions, losing a lot of emotional information.
Noise interference
In the open environment of the museum, footsteps, conversations, and exhibition broadcasts mix together. The traditional loudspeaker’s sound is either drowned out or too loud and interferes with other visitors.
Lack of interaction
The guide proceeds at a fixed pace, and tourists can only record their questions and wait for the end of the explanation to ask, or even “let it go”, and deep communication is impossible.
Distance limitation
Tourists must follow the guide, and if they fall behind by a few steps, they will lose connection. Trying to slow down to appreciate a certain artifact will result in missing the subsequent explanation, “either keep up or lose the content”.
And these challenges, in the Yingmi 008B two-way wireless guide system, have all had targeted solutions.
The core experience of 008B
Two-way Communication
The core advantage of the 008B is that it breaks the “one-way output” tour mode, allowing overseas visitors to also participate in interaction easily. This system is divided into “transmitter” (used by the guide) and “receiver” (worn by the tourists), and they are connected through digital wireless signals. The most crucial thing is – there is a prominent “question button” on the tourist’s receiver. In the Egyptian exhibition hall of the Tokyo National Museum, holding the 008B receiver, I looked at the “Ramses II Statue” in the display case and wondered: “Why is the nose of this statue incomplete? Was it damaged during the preservation process?” I pressed the question button, and a few seconds later, the voice of the guide came from the receiver: “This is a very good question! The nose of the statue was not damaged naturally, but was deliberately destroyed during the war in the 4th century BC. The invaders at that time believed that destroying the face of the statue could weaken the ‘divinity’ of the pharaoh…”
What was even more surprising was that the guide also added: “Many tourists have asked similar questions. Now I switch to two-way mode to give everyone a unified answer.” As soon as the words were over, the sound in the receiver changed to “broadcast mode”, and several tourists wearing the same device around me stopped and listened carefully to this supplementary explanation.
“Previously, when leading overseas groups, the most exhausting part was ‘answering questions on the way back’, ” Ms. Wang, the guide of the Palace Museum, told me. “There were always tourists who fell behind and came to ask the same questions after I finished a section. It disrupted the rhythm and also affected other tourists. Now with the 008B, tourists can ask questions at any time, I can reply immediately, and I can even ‘broadcast’ common questions, the efficiency has increased a lot.”
This “anytime questioning, immediate response” experience has completely changed the visiting mindset of overseas tourists – no longer being “passively receiving information”, but “actively exploring answers”. German historian Hansen said: “I study Eastern culture, and many details need to be confirmed. The 008B allows me not to ‘save questions’, during the exhibition process it is the ‘process of communication’, this is what a museum should be like.”
Sound Quality and Anti-interference
The noise environment in the museum is the “enemy” of explanations, especially in popular venues, the decibel value can reach 60-70 during peak hours. But the “digital wireless transmission + intelligent noise reduction” combination of the 008B solves the problem of sound quality.
I conducted a test in the “Textile Exhibition Hall” of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London: There were over 200 tourists in the exhibition hall, and there was also simulated sound of textile machines operating. The guide stood at the entrance of the exhibition hall, and I held the receiver and walked to the end of the exhibition hall 200 meters away (the maximum span of this venue is about 250 meters), and I still could clearly hear the guide saying, “The production process of 18th-century British lace requires 12 steps, each step must be completed by hand”, and even could hear her exclamation in her tone.
“This is because we used GFSK Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying modulation technology, which is more than three times more resistant to interference than ordinary Bluetooth devices,” explained Mr. Li, an engineer of Eagle Mobile. “Ordinary wireless devices are prone to ‘frequency interference’ when working in multiple groups simultaneously, but the 008B supports independent operation of multiple channels, even if there are 10 tour groups in the same exhibition hall, there will be no ‘interference’ situation.”
What’s more considerate is the “intelligent noise reduction” function. In the exhibition hall of the Taihe Hall of the Palace Museum, I deliberately stood next to several tourists who were talking loudly, and the receiver still only retained the voice of the guide, and the surrounding conversation was automatically filtered out. “The system can recognize ‘human voice frequency band’, only retaining clear voice signals, the environmental noise will be compressed to the minimum,” Mr. Li said. “Many elderly overseas tourists have reported that before, when listening to the explanations, they had to ‘struggle to distinguish’, now ‘they don’t need to deliberately concentrate, they can hear every word clearly’.”
Multi-language Support
For overseas tourists, “language” is a more difficult obstacle to overcome than “noise”. And the “8-channel synchronous translation” function of 008B directly broke through this barrier.
In the “Clocks and Watches Museum” of the Palace Museum, the announcer’s transmitter has a “language switch button”. After she presses the “French” key, my receiver immediately synchronously switches to French narration: “This 18th-century copper-gilded writer clock was custom-made by a clockmaker from London for Emperor Qianlong. Pressing the switch, the writer will use a brush to write the eight Chinese characters ‘Eight Directions Transform, Nine Lands Submit to the King’… ” The entire switching process takes less than 1 second, without any lag.
“We have preset 8 commonly used languages: Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, and Arabic, covering over 90% of the overseas tourist population,” said Ms. Zhang, the overseas marketing director of Yiming. “If the museum has special needs, other minor languages can also be customized, such as Russian, Portuguese, etc. Moreover, the transmitter can pre-record multilingual explanations, and the announcer doesn’t need to know a foreign language. Just by pressing a button, tourists can hear explanations in their native language.”
This feature deeply impressed the Arab tourist Abdul: “I have visited many museums before, and could only see English explanations. But many cultural terms were translated inaccurately. Now, listening to Arabic explanations with 008B, I can accurately understand ‘How the Arabic patterns on the blue and white porcelain reflect the cultural exchange between China and Arabia’, this ‘native language interpretation’ feeling is so intimate.”
According to statistics from a certain free trade zone, after using 008B, the efficiency of foreign guests’ reception increased by 60%, and the translation cost decreased by 40% – this data is also applicable in the museum scenario. After Beijing’s Palace Museum introduced 008B, they cancelled the “special language interpretation group reservation system” and replaced it with “on-demand use”, and the satisfaction rate of small language tourists’ visits soared from 65% to 92%.
Battery life and portability
When overseas tourists visit museums, they often spend a whole day (for example, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. closing time), “battery life” and “portability” have become key factors.
The receiver of 008B weighs only 35 grams, half the weight of a mobile phone. Worn around the neck, it feels almost nothing. I wore it for 8 hours continuously, and my neck had no marks or discomfort. “We use food-grade silicone straps, which won’t cause allergies, and the shell of the receiver is matte, so it won’t slide when sweating,” said Ms. Zhang. “Many tourists have feedback that ‘wearing it is like wearing a lightweight accessory, it doesn’t affect viewing the exhibits at all.'”
In terms of battery life, 008B can use 8-12 hours on a single charge, fully covering the needs of an all-day visit. If the battery runs out halfway, the accompanying “portable charging case” can be used – this charging case is like a small storage box, can hold 6 receivers at the same time, and can restore 50% of the battery in half an hour of charging. “Last time I took my parents to the Tokyo National Museum, my father’s receiver ran out of power around noon. After putting it in the charging case for a meal break, it could be fully charged and used again, very convenient,” said Ms. Chen, a tourist from Taiwan, China. “There’s no need to search for charging sockets everywhere, nor to worry about the equipment ‘breaking down’ due to running out of power.”
How 008B Rewrites the “Cultural Communication Mode” of Museums
During the visit, I found that 008B brought not only “experience upgrade”, but also a revolution in the museum service model.
Emily, the education department head of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, said: “Previously, our ‘expert interaction session’ could only accommodate 20 people because it was difficult to hear and ask when there were too many people.” Now, using 008B, we can accommodate 100 people simultaneously. Experts give answers on stage, while visitors ask questions through receivers. Even “group discussions” can be conducted – for instance, visitors from different countries can share “the textile techniques in their own cultures”. Such cross-cultural exchanges were previously unimaginable.
The Tokyo National Museum has created “personalized guided tours” using 008B: Visitors can choose between “in-depth explanation channels” or “basic explanation channels” – for example, tourists interested in Japanese ukiyo-e can listen to experts explain “the color application techniques in Katsushika Hokusai’s ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa'” in the “in-depth channel”; while those with time constraints can quickly understand “the origin and development of ukiyo-e” in the “basic channel”.
“This is the value of 008B – it transforms the museum’s service from ‘uniform’ to ‘personalized’, allowing every visitor to have a dialogue with the artifacts at their own pace, in their own language, and according to their own needs,” Emily said. “For overseas visitors, this is not just ‘understanding the exhibits’, but ‘understanding the culture’ – this is the core mission of the museum.”
Conclusion: Let every artifact be “clearly heard” by the world
When I finished my experience at the Palace Museum, the setting sun was shining through the window panes of the Taihe Hall onto the artifacts in the display cases. An elderly woman from Italy was wearing a 008B receiver and softly sighed as she looked at the “Qianlong Pink Porcelain Vase”: “Chinese porcelain not only has beautiful patterns, but also has so many stories about families and etiquette.” Her granddaughter pressed the question button and asked the guide, “How was this porcelain vase transported to the Palace Museum?” Her face was full of curiosity.
At this moment, I suddenly understood the significance of 008B: It is not a cold electronic device, but a “warm cultural bridge” – it breaks down language barriers, eliminates noise interference, and enables overseas visitors to “clearly hear” the stories of the artifacts, and even “participate” in the exchange of the stories.
For overseas visitors, the museum is the “first window” to understand a country’s history and culture. And the Yingmi two-way wireless guide 008B is the “lens” that brightens this window – it makes every artifact no longer just an “exhibit” in a glass cabinet, but a “cultural carrier” that can have a dialogue with visitors; making each museum visit not just a “quick glance” for checking, but a deep, free, and warm “cultural encounter”. The next time you walk into the museum with 008B, you will discover: conversing with history can be so simple.