Wiimote newbie tips

Having recently come across the Wiimote whiteboard by Johnny Chung Lee, I bought a Wii controller to test it. I learned a few things which were not obvious on most blogs and wikis which might help out a new user:
  1. Wiimote Whiteboard v0.3 software on Johnny's blog does not work with Windows 7 64 bit.
  2. After pairing the Wiimote with the PC, the lights on the Wiimote keeps on blinking till it's turned off by software. I kept thinking that it was not paired properly when infact it was. I found the WPF wii data visualizer tool to be the best application to test that the controller is working properly.
  3. After every session you must pair the Wiimote anew. That is you should delete any existing paring with the wiimote from the bluetooth device manager and pair it again as if it was the first time.
  4. Sometimes even though the device is paired successfully the applications does not detect it's presence or does not receive any data from it. In these cases I found that you need to take out one of the batteries for a few seconds and then put it back again to reset it. Trying to sync it by holding down 1 & 2 or the red sync button did not seem to work.
  5. GlovePIE does work however you might have to disable the automatic connect (Click the "No Auto-Bluetooth Connect" option) and manually do the sync yourself, because sometimes it does not work.
  6. Most automatic connect software only work if you have a Microsoft bluetooth stack. If you have a Widcomm driver (my Dell Studio 1557 does) they usually do not work and you should pair the controller manually. Even software which does support the Widcomm driver like the Java Whiteboard did not work for me with the latest Widcomm driver. The only exception to this for me was GlovePIE though even that gave me trouble sometimes.
Of course all of the above is from my own experience with the Wii controller. Your milage will vary. You probably want to read the connection guide at WiimoteProject forum

2 comments:

  1. cool! can you tell where in the code that makes it compatible with windows7?

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  2. Nexus 4 is a great smartphone but I also got sad after knowing the fact that it doesn't suport USB OTG.But never the less,I am still so happy for your nexus 4.

    ReplyDelete