Talk:Buzzer

this should probably mention online buzzers like buzzin.live Eric Yin (talk) 01:16, 24 September 2021 (CDT)

I added a few sentences about online buzzers, but there's still plenty of room for more info (particularly in the body of the article). Reilly Melville (talk) 08:04, 24 September 2021 (CDT)

I think details about online buzzers belongs in a separate article or the article about online quizbowl, since they serve a fairly different use case than everything else on the page. The short bit just added to this page seems fine. I don't feel that strongly about it. —Jonah (talk) 08:07, 24 September 2021 (CDT)

I added an external link for a decently priced USB buzzer that works very well for buzzin.live or Discord. Why are USB buzzers considered impractical? Are they even considered impractical? George Tagtmeier (talk) 11:44, 24 September 2021 (CDT)

It was my belief that USB buzzers were considered impractical because pretty much no one has USB buzzers lying around so it'd be expensive to set up (plus I'm not aware of any recent tournaments that used them). I'm hardly an expert on the matter, but I think the advent of Buzzin.live has rendered them obsolete. Also, I got an error message when I clicked on the link you added, although that might just be my internet or something. Reilly Melville (talk) 14:27, 24 September 2021 (CDT)

You can press the button on buzzin.live or similar software with anything; whether it looks like a buzzer, a game controller, a mouse, your hand on the touchscreen of a phone etc. changes nothing about how the actual online component of the software works. Matt Weiner (talk) 12:08, 19 December 2022 (CST)

Some hot takes about good/bad buzzers here

Maybe this could be rewritten to address "buzzer X is suited for such and such need but its drawbacks are..." or ways for people to deal with problems. As an example, the Zeecraft section seems to take issue with fitting the buzzers into the case - but Zeecraft makes many different models of buzzer, and a lot of people who have them inherited them from a previous generation of their club or bought them because they are the most common kind of system available used for a discount and aren't directly concerned at this point with whether they "should" purchase them vs. another manufacturer. So, specifying which kind of Zeecraft has this issue and how to solve it might be more productive. For example, VCU owns one Zeecraft and instead of using the "briefcase" we put it into one of the off-the-shelf Solo catalog cases that NED sells for their buzzers, which seems to protect the components better and provide enough space to repack it without extraordinary effort. I think similar information could be provided regarding all of the systems listed here. The end goal of the article should be giving clubs confidence to buy, maintain, and repair buzzers rather than be afraid of doing so and have tournaments short of buzzers as a result. Matt Weiner (talk) 13:26, 18 December 2022 (CST)

I agree that some sort of comparison of systems' strengths and weaknesses (form factor, price, portability, ease of setup, ease of use, reliability, repairability, etc.) would be great. —Jonah (talk) 13:45, 18 December 2022 (CST)

I've started a table to this effect. For some reason the table is showing up at the bottom of the page and not under the heading I made for it; hopefully someone can figure out why this is. I've included what I believe to be every quizbowl-usable buzzer model that is still being manufactured. I (or, if someone else wants to do this, they are welcome) will add info about systems that are no longer being made, and possibly buzzers that aren't usable for mainstream quizbowl, at some future time. Matt Weiner (talk) 10:05, 20 December 2022 (CST)