The Neo buzzer system is an open-source, hopefully reliable, and hopefully affordable line of quiz lockout buzzers. It also does not currently exist. This is a rather significant flaw, though one I'm working to repair.
The initial planning is for one set of buzzers intended to have user-facing backwards compatibility with a popular set of commercial buzzers. A cheaper option may follow depending on how that goes.
- Finalise design concepts
- Source parts
- PCB design
- Order and initial testing
- 3D printed case design
- Real-world testing
- Release
I'm trying to be cost-conscious while designing these buzzers, but I'm not planning on imminently selling any or distributing them beyond Imperial until they're both finished and well-tested. If you need a buzzer set now, I'll point you to buying a Kitsune system from Aisling Skeet; they're a solid set of buzzers and they've been tested at quite a few competitive events. If you want a pricing estimate, it's probably whatever I say it is at the moment plus a bit on top because this keeps getting more expensive with every revision.
Just a quick note as well, this is an open-source project and, as a result, you can do whatever you'd like as per the licence, but if you want to make your own buzzers, please don't sell them? Obviously I neither can nor will try and stop you, but these haven't been particularly cheap to work on, even though as I write this I haven't shipped out any PCBs yet - parts are expensive! I'd love it if anyone who wants to improve them does that though, either on this repository or on your own fork.
- Daisy-chain as many buzzers per side as you could ever reasonably want
- USB-C connection with data for potential BuzzIn.live support or generic input
- Low/fair latency
- Static discharge protection and industrial signalling for reliability
- At-home reflashable central unit firmware for customisation/DIY firmware upgrades
- Open source!