Every phone becomes a buzzer

How it works in three steps

1. Open a room. Tap the buzzer in the app. You get a four-digit room code and a QR code. Put your phone where everyone can see it, or read the code out loud.
2. Everyone joins. Guests point their camera at the QR code and the room opens in the app. Anyone without it grabs the free app and taps the link again. They pick a nickname and, if they like, add a photo. Each new name pops up in your list.
3. Buzz. You open the round, read your question and everyone hits their buzzer. Your screen shows who was first, who came next and how far apart they were. Award a point, open the next round.

When you are done, the final ranking goes to your group's table in the app. Next time, everyone knows who's ahead.

One winner or the full order

You choose the mode before the round starts.

• One winner is for classic trivia. The first buzz counts, everybody else sees that they were too late.
• Full order is for games where second and third place matter, or when you want proof. You see every buzz in order, each with its gap in milliseconds.

Either way, you stay in charge. Points are yours to give, so you can decide on the spot whether a half right answer counts.

Where a phone buzzer works

Trivia night at home

Write ten questions, or pick a theme like movies, the neighborhood or your family's history. Everyone buzzes on their own phone, so nobody slaps the table and nobody argues about who was first.

Office party

A buzzer quiz is the easiest team game for coworkers. Nobody has to perform, and a round takes as long as you like. Read more ideas in our list of Christmas party games.

Classroom and clubs

Review questions before a test, a quiz at the club's holiday party, a warm up at a team meeting. Students join with the free app and no account. With Plus, a room holds up to 24 phones.

New Year's Eve

A year in review quiz before midnight works well with a buzzer. See our New Year's Eve games for questions and a plan for the night.

What's free and what comes with Plus

The buzzer is free with up to four guests. That's enough for a family trivia round or a quiz with four teams, each sharing one phone. GameClique Plus allows rooms with up to 24 phones. Plus comes as a weekly plan, a yearly plan or a one-time purchase, and the prices are shown in the app and the store. There is no free trial. Guests never pay.

The rest of the toolbox is free, too: dice, coin flip, spinner, teams, turn order, score counter, countdown, stopwatch and bracket. No ads.

An honest word about the connection

The order comes from the time the server receives each buzz, not from the clock on each phone. That keeps things fair, because a phone with a wrong clock can't cheat. It also means that a very poor connection can make a buzz arrive late, and then the order can differ from what happened at the table.

In practice: if the Wi-Fi is weak, have guests switch to mobile data. If your phone as the host loses the connection, the app tells you and reconnects on its own. And if two people are just a few milliseconds apart, you can always call it a tie and give both a point.

A room expires after 12 hours. Nicknames, photos and buzz times don't stick around after that.

Tips for a good buzzer quiz

• Short questions win. If you read for too long, people buzz before the question ends. Say "Buzz after the question" at the start.
• Mix easy and hard. Everyone should score at least once.
• Wrong answer, next in line. In full order mode, the second person gets a try if the first one misses.
• Ten questions per round. Then a short break, snacks and the next theme.