I want to build a set of big trivia buzzers for a trivia night.
I was thinking of using an arduino for the main (host) controller and having arcade buttons for the contestants. However, I am not sure how to get them to be wireless.
Any ideas?
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Hi Jordyn,
Unfortunately, wireless is not yet an easy task. The simplest implementation I’ve seen is ESP-NOW, that @Liam120347 Has looked into here:
For something as simple as button pressing, I’d imagine that you could do the whole thing as just radios transmitting on different frequencies and demodulated into pins on the MCU, but this is outside my skill set for now. Maybe someone with more experience in the analog domain can chime in?
-James
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Hi Jordan, James
How many buttons???
I don’t think it is quite as simple as that. For instance you are limited to the bands that don’t require licensing. The easiest band that comes to mind is the 433MHz (I think 433 is correct, somewhere around here anyway) stuff which seems to come as a TX/RX pair. Now I don’t know how many discrete frequencies are available in this band or if you can specify or change frequencies at all or take what you get. If you have to take what you get it would be possible to get a box full of pairs all the one frequency which would not be of much use for multiple buttons. I haven’t had anything to do with these modules so I am unsure of the exact state of play here. If an attempt is made to use multiple TXs on the same frequency (the same nominal frequency) problems will occur with low beat frequencies as the TXs will not likely be EXACT…
Cheers Bob
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Hi Jordyn,
Welcome to the forum 
Bob makes a key point about your requirement for buttons, how many were you looking to use?
If it a low quantity(1-4 that can be sat close-ish) to eachother I’d take a look at using a range of these 433MHz kits: Gravity: Digital Wireless Switch Kit - Transmit and Receive (433MHz) | DFRobot TEL0140-1 | Core Electronics Australia
A setup might look like a few of these modules stacked onto an Arduino Mega (so you get the high pin count) and a few of the transmitter-receiver kits. (Note, unfortunately there isnt a listing for how many ‘channels’ these modules are able to transmit on so I’d do some quick testing beforehand if this is a route you’d like to explore).
A quick note about an ESP-NOW setup, while a great guide from @Liam120347 the ESP boards can be a bit finicky to get working as you like - definitely worth a look in though.
If you have any questions dont hesitate to ask!
Liam
Hey Guys
I was thinking four
Thanks for the advice
how about using IR for a task like this? you may need micro controllers, but what you could do is this for example:
each button has a battery, a microcontroller (esp8266, attiny85 or an arduino nano for example) and each button can send out a command, like a pulse for the player number, and an IR led for sending the command.
the main unit should have an ir receiver (or multiple!) the main board, (an indicator, or led or some way to indicate which player won the button press?) and a battery, or some sort of power source.
now I do want to say, with this, it could get confused by having four signals sent at the same time, you could possibly remedy this by sending the signal a couple times, OR, by adding an IR reciever on all the buttons, that if they detect an IR signal, they stop sending their own signal, but that could have its own complications.
just some thoughts, if you want a bit more info or explanation just lmk
Hi All
We were at the local Bowling Club a couple of weeks ago. They had some sort of Trivia night going and seemed to be using phones, possibly via the local club WiFi. I did not look too closely into it but will do next time I see it on.
Cheers Bob
