Buzzer options
There are three ways a person buzzes in. They can be mixed in one game, and a show does not need to know which is in the room.
Phones — available
A phone scans the code on the screen and becomes a buzzer. Nothing to install, no account, no seat to buy. This is the one everybody has, and it is what the games are designed around.
Buzz order is decided by when a press reached the Mac, not by whose Wi-Fi is better. There is a lockout while a question is still being read and a penalty for pressing early, which between them stop the room learning that mashing the button early wins.
A keyboard or a Stream Deck — in build
Keys on the Mac, or a Stream Deck's physical buttons, mapped to buzz, next, reveal and judge. Useful when a leader wants buttons they can find without looking. Specified, not shipped.
Hardware buzzers — designed, a later phase
Big 100 mm arcade buttons with a lit ring, battery powered, talking to a small USB receiver on their own radio — no Wi-Fi network involved at all, which is the point: the network is the thing that fails in a church hall. The receiver timestamps each press as it arrives, so ordering is settled by hardware rather than by the network.
This is designed down to the components and is not something you can buy. If you want a room like that, tell us — it is the kind of thing that moves up a plan when people ask.
Choosing between them
| If the room is… | Use |
|---|---|
| Everyone has a phone | Phones |
| Under-8s, or phones are not allowed | Hardware buzzers, when they exist; two leaders with phones until then |
| Teams at tables | One phone per table — a show can treat a device as a team |
| A leader running it single-handed | Phone for the host, keys or a Stream Deck when that ships |
Something here wrong or missing? Tell us.