Nintendo Wii
Hardware
Wimote
- The Wii Remote or Wimote or classic controller is one of the 2 standard video game controllers.
- Wiimote (Wili) Overview for programmers.
- Wiimote/Drivers List various drivers for various hardware
- Wii Remote (Wikipedia)
The Wimote communicates through bluetooth. Its controller follows the Bluetooth Human Interface Device (HID) standard and is based on the USB HID standard.
It has
- 12 buttons
- A motion sensor
- An Infrared (IR) sensor (that gets input from the "sensor bar")
To use this with a computer, e.g. a Windows PC you need 3 things:
- A bluetooth card (on most laptops I think), else you can buy
- A driver on Windows (e.g. WiinRemote or GlovePie)
- Then in order to interface the controller with the bluetooth, you first put the controller into discoverable mode by either pressing the 1 and 2 buttons at the same time, or by pressing the red sync button under the battery cover.
Nunchuk
- The Nunchuk is the other standard game controller.
Sensor Bar
- The Sensor Bar allows the Wii Remote to be used as an accurate pointing device up to 5 meters (approx. 16 ft) away from the bar.
In education
There are edutainment games for the Wii (not discussed here).
Nintendo hardware can be repurposed. Most popular hacks seem to interface the sensor bar and video controllers with an other computer. There are several initiatives on the software side. The most simple ways to profit from Wii is to write code for the Internet Channel (based on Opera). The remote controller is in JavaScript accessible through:
window.opera.wiiremote
But most people worte drivers for various Wii hardware and scripts on top of these.
Interesting projects
GlovePIE
GlovePIE is software (i.e. a Driver) to control Games with Gestures, Speech, and Other Input Devices! Among other hardware, it interfaces with Nintendo Wii Remote and Nunchuk.
- Wii Script is a website that includes a range of Wii Scripts based on GlovePie.
- WiiLi (Gnu/Linux port for the Nintendo Wii) has another collection of GlovePIE Scripts
Wiinremote
- Home. A Japanese library.
Links
=== Official sites
Overviews
- Wii (Wikipedia)
Hacking Wii hardware
- Wii homebrew (Wikipedia overview)
- GlovePIE