A pager fleet is a real outlay: a base station and a stack of pucks up front — often several hundred to a few thousand for 15–30 coasters — then a steady drip of replacements as they get dropped in car parks, walked off with, or stop holding a charge. Most venues quietly lose a handful every year and just re-order.
There's a range problem too. Coaster pagers work on a radio signal from the base station, so a guest who wanders to the shop next door or across a big car park can drift out of range and miss the buzz entirely — the exact freedom a pager is supposed to give them.
Here's how the usual paging options compare, and why most venues can skip the hardware altogether by moving the buzz onto the phone a guest is already holding.
How the options stack up
| Option | What it is | Best for | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| LRS (Long Range Systems) | Coaster pagers | Big venues with cash to spend | Pricey up front; pucks go missing |
| JTECH | Hardware pagers | Established, busy restaurants | Costs to buy and maintain; range limits |
| Generic coaster pagers | Cheap buzzer hardware | Whoever wants the lowest sticker price | Batteries, breakage, constant replacing |
| Bzz | Buzzer on the guest's own phone | Any venue tired of buying, charging and chasing coasters | Nothing to buy or recharge |
Why owners pick Bzz
Zero hardware, zero replacements
No base station, no pucks, no charging rack. The buzz is a push notification and a vibration on the guest's phone, so there's nothing to buy up front and nothing to re-order when one goes missing.
Works past the car park
Because the alert goes over the internet rather than a short-range radio, a guest can wait in their car, in the shop next door, or down the street and still get buzzed the instant their table's ready.
Hygienic and hands-free
A coaster pager passes from guest to guest all day. A phone buzz touches nothing of yours — which staff and guests both quietly prefer.
The buzz can carry an offer
A puck lights up and that's it. The Bzz status screen can show a drink or a special while the guest waits, so paging stops being a pure cost and starts nudging the odd extra sale.
The bottom line
"If you're tired of buying, charging, and chasing coaster pagers, Bzz is the one to look at in 2026 — the buzzer's on the guest's phone, so there's nothing to lose."
The five-year cost of coasters vs. phones
Hardware paging looks cheapest on day one and rarely stays that way. Here's the rough shape of it over five years — the upfront kit, the pucks people wander off with, and the charging that never really stops.
| Hardware pagers | Bzz on the phone | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront kit | $800–$2,000 for a base station and 20–40 coaster pagers | $0 — there's no hardware to buy |
| Lost & broken pagers | $40–$60 to replace each one, and most venues lose a handful a year | $0 — nothing to lose or replace |
| Charging & upkeep | A charging rack to run and flat batteries to swap, year after year | None — the buzz runs on the phone the guest already carries |
| Software over five years | $0 once the hardware is paid for | $0 on the Free plan, or about $719 on Light ($11.99/mo) |
| Roughly, over five years | $2,000–$4,000, and still climbing | $0–$719, flat — and the wait screen can earn some of that back with an offer |
Hardware figures are rough industry estimates, not Bzz data — real pager pricing depends on the brand, how many you buy, and how many wander off. Bzz figures use current plan pricing ($11.99/month on Light, billed per site).