Explorer vs NAHPU

Download Explorer, the Museum’s free mobile app! Get a map, turn-by-turn directions to exhibits and amenities, customized recommendations for what to see, and more!    “A great aid to anyone seeing the museum for the first or 40th time.” - The New York Times   Available in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Explorer is automatically set to the language of your device.   Map and Turn-by-Turn Directions Get directions to exhibits and amenities, including shortest and accessible routes.   Get Recommendations for What to See Explorer recommends exhibits based on interests you select—and sorts them by how close they are to your location.   Learn More About the Museum’s Exhibits Go behind the scenes and dive deeper with videos, fun quizzes, and more.   Find the Nearest Restroom Explorer provides you the shortest route to restrooms, shops, exits, and more. How does Explorer know where you are? The Museum has placed more than 700 Bluetooth beacons throughout its 45 permanent halls. These tiny beacons give off signals that your phone can detect (when Bluetooth is enabled). Your phone calculates your position based on detecting three of these beacons simultaneously. This triangulation is not always perfect, especially in certain areas like large, multi-level halls, meandering walkways, or stairwells. Your phone should be able to detect the hall that you are in and provide turn-by-turn directions, but sometimes the “blue dot” is not exactly in the right place. In some rare cases it will even be missing. Moving to another area and waiting a few moments will usually fix the issue. The Museum’s free AMNH-GUEST Wi-Fi also varies in strength throughout the complex. Certain materials and large exhibits (i.e. the Blue Whale) either absorb or reflect the radio signals used by Wi-Fi, further complicating this technology. If you experience difficulty connecting to Wi-Fi in a particular part of the Museum, you can usually fix the issue by moving a short distance away.   We’d Love to Hear From You! Your feedback is important and will help us improve your Museum experience. Email explorer@amnh.org.   Supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies

NAHPU is a free, open-source digital field catalog for natural history research. It helps field researchers, museum staff, students, and collection teams keep specimens, sites, collection events, tissues, media, and notes connected within a single project. Built for real field conditions, NAHPU’s core cataloging workflow works offline and requires no account. Your records remain on your device unless you choose to export, back up, or share them. What you can do - Organize projects, team members, and taxon registries - Catalog mammals, birds, herpetofauna, and arthropods with group-specific fields - Record sites, coordinates, habitats, collecting events, effort, and environmental context - Track specimens, preparations, parts, tissue samples, measurements, and associated data - Capture and organize photos, audio, video, and field notes - Exchange selected records and settings with QR codes - Review collection statistics during fieldwork - Export records as CSV, TSV, Excel, or JSON - Create Darwin Core Archives, Darwin Core Data Packages, and NAHPU Data Packages - Transfer projects, create restorable backups, and design PDF labels and documents From field capture to curation NAHPU keeps related records together and reduces repeated entry across field and museum workflows. Its open-standard exports, including Darwin Core, help teams move structured records into analysis, collection-management, and biodiversity publishing systems. Private by design NAHPU does not require an account. Core data is stored on your device, and you decide when to export or share it. Some optional map views require an internet connection. Responsible use NAHPU is a cataloging tool. You are responsible for following applicable permits, institutional protocols, ethical standards, and local laws when collecting or handling specimens. Note that the records shown in app screenshots are for illustrative purposes only and do not reflect real field data.