Wii sensor bar hax0red
By Paul Miller 
posted November 21st 2006 9:03PM
posted November 21st 2006 9:03PM
We're sure most of you Wii users are too busy Googling Zelda walkthroughs or chucking your Wiimote at the TV right now to give this hack much notice, but if you're the type that just has to know how something works and then destroy it utterly (you know who you are), then you might want to have a looksee at this one. Apparently some enterprising hax0rs tore apart their Wii sensor bar, only to find a couple of standard IR emitters. It turns out the "sensor" bar doesn't actually sense at all, it just sends out a pair of IR beams which can then be triangulated by the Wiimote. This of course opens up the possibility of DIY sensor bars and other related (performance enhancing?) hacks, but it still won't do much to help you through that extended "intro" phase in Twilight Princess, so sorry. Click on to view the vid of a custom-rigged sensor bar in action.[Via Joystiq]
Not sure what you mean by '3D mouse' but as far as the 'first' claim goes, it isn't. Gyration has been making mice that do what the Wiimote does for years. I've had one for years.
Just saying though! I love the Wii :D
My engineering sense would tell me that the LEDs in the sensor bar are polarized at perpendicular angles, and then the wiimote has IR photodiodes that are also behind polarizing filters, thus you can calculate the rotation of the remote in space by a simple calculation based on the current flowing through each diode. This would offer much more accuracy than the MEMS accelerometer chip in the wiimote.
What this makes me very curious about is if you could make your own bar that allows you to adjust the distance between the left and right set of IR beams.
This could possibly increase the direct aiming accuracy of the wiimote when used with large screens.
I have a 62" tv, and i find that when aiming down the wiimote, the calibration is way off from where I am pointing. I take this to be because nintendo chose a specific TV side to be "Optimal" and then hard locked their sensorbar to that setting.
By widening the distance between the beams, you'd trick the wii into thinking your TV was smaller than it is, and then would end up with a more accurate portrayal of "pointing".
Some of you are putting way too much thought into the complexity of the sensor bar, it is indeed strictly, 2, always on, no transmission, IR LEDs. I flipped the bar over, and you know what happened... nothing, the controller is full of accelerometers, it can tell which direction is up and down without the sensor bar, it just uses the 2 points for precise triangulation with the screen and the screen only. For all other functions, like playing parts of any game that doesn't use the onscreen pointer you can disconnect the bar and the game tracks all movement the same as it does with the sensor bar on.
"moron. You've clearly not played one. I don't care what you're a fan of, you're an idiot"
No, clearly I have, cuz that's why I know the Wii is terrible.
First of all, the Wii is just a gimmick, it's something that people will play for like five minutes, and then it will sit there collecting dust. This is exactly why the Wii will initially sell very well compared to its competitors. But in the long run, people will begin to realize that it actually has no good games and that gameplay is a b***h. With the PlayStation 3, and even the XBox 360, Sony Computer Entertainment and Microsoft have played it safe by using conventional gamepads. Nintendo did have the right idea when they implemented motion-sensing capabilities into the Wii remote, but they are going about it the wrong way. The Wii remote is just too much of a deviation from the traditional gamepad, and this limits the type of games that can be played with the Wii.
Second of all, what the Wii is trying to do is let users feel as though they are actually in the game. However, it's obvious that they didn't give this enough thought. With the Wii remote, how do you emulate the feel of a tennis racquet or a katana?! Simple, you can't. The problem here is the weight-distribution of the remote, it's a simple roughly 45/55 weight distribution between the two halves. But does a tennis racquet have 45/55 weight distribution?! Not any racquet I've ever used. In fact, the racquets I use are head-heavy, with around 60/40 weight distribution. And with a katana, the ratio is even larger. With the hilt, there's going to be less than 20% of the mass of the entire weapon. The rest is going to be in the blade. With the Wii, you can't get this type of sensation. What Nintendo should have done was have variable weight distribution to get the feel that they were actually going for.
Also, I've used the Wii for a number of applications, including both the system interface and gameplay. Both are terrible. In the system interface, the cursor feels way to sensitive, and in games, the remote does not register your actions accurately. While it is obvious that any motion-sensing device needs to be accurate in real-world applications, Nintendo could have at least put in some simple software changing the sensitivity of the cursor during use with the system interface.
In the long run, the PlayStation 3 will be the way to go. It has the hardware to last developers for years, and it's got the games to keep people coming back for more. With the PlayStation 3, SCEI has a real winner.
"In the long run, the PlayStation 3 will be the way to go."
AHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAAHAHAHahahhaahahahhh ha ha ha.. ahem. *giggle*
Can the Wii and more sensors be turned into a low cost motion capture system?
it most likely wont be as accurate as a professional one, bu tis it still possible?
"it just uses the 2 points for precise triangulation with the screen and the screen only."
Exactly, which is why if you mess with them and move them farther apart or closer together, it will behave differently (as if your screen is bigger or smaller). This could be quite handy for trying to get more accurate pointing on large screens.
Curious what others think of this (Pardon the length and frequent use of quote marks):
Given that:
The Sensor bar provides the Remote with the position of the screen (above, below), from which it gauges where the Remote is "actually" being pointed, along with two standard-length points to determine how far away it is from the screen(and tilt?). As a one-size-fits-all option Nintendo had to guess an average "bar to middle-of-screen" distance, and a comfortable viewing distance from said screen.
The larger your screen is, the more off those "best guesses" by Nintendo are. While it may not matter when using the Remote as a relative pointer, 1 to 1 accuracy is always preferable. Could a modded bar have an adjustable width to "fool" the Remote? A wider bar would place the Remote's guess of "center screen" longer in actual distance, allowing greater accuracy. Also, distance from screen would alter allowing for more comfortable (further away) game-specific callibrations, ala Zelda's callibration function.
Indeed, instead of waiting for third party products, you could cut the stock bar in half, and with a little bit of trial and error, callibrate the Wii for your specific set.
Luckily my puny screen is a pretty good fit, so I'm leaving my hacksaw in the tool shed.
Quote:
"Second of all, what the Wii is trying to do is let users feel as though they are actually in the game. However, it's obvious that they didn't give this enough thought. With the Wii remote, how do you emulate the feel of a tennis racquet or a katana?! Simple, you can't. The problem here is the weight-distribution of the remote, it's a simple roughly 45/55 weight distribution between the two halves. But does a tennis racquet have 45/55 weight distribution?! Not any racquet I've ever used. In fact, the racquets I use are head-heavy, with around 60/40 weight distribution. And with a katana, the ratio is even larger. With the hilt, there's going to be less than 20% of the mass of the entire weapon. The rest is going to be in the blade. With the Wii, you can't get this type of sensation. What Nintendo should have done was have variable weight distribution to get the feel that they were actually going for."
That was by far the stupidest anti console argument I have ever heard. Complaining about the weight distribution because it doesn't feel like a katana.. lol. Thanks for the mid-day humor.
"That was by far the stupidest anti console argument I have ever heard. Complaining about the weight distribution because it doesn't feel like a katana.. lol. Thanks for the mid-day humor."
lol i agree. because you know... the ps3 controler feels a lot more like a katana...right? LOL... NOT.
Wow, the Wii sucks because it doesn't simulate reality perfectly.
The truth is that they took a very simple and elegant technology and made it work in an infintely variable set of environments. If all you think it is a gimmick, then you have no imagination or far too high expectations. That's fine, but don't deride those who actually do have fun with the system, which by all accounts is quite a few people.
As for the IR bar, I don't think we can yet rule out that it might be sending data or at least blinking or something. It might blink at the same time it sends some kind of synching data over bluetooth to the controllers or something. If you go into the sensor bar sensitivity settings, you can basically see exactly how the remotes "see" the sensor bar. Yes it is simpler than the 'magic' we were led to believe it is, but it is still impressive because it works as well as it does while remaining fairly simple.
Im not sure how one could find the controller to be too sensitive in the system menus, as I found it to be very much easier to use than I thought it would be. It does something to stabilize the pointer a bit so that it is easier to point at things on the screen.
And I can so tell who sat down to play the system with an attitude of "man this is stupid, its going to suck so bad" because thats all they are ever going to be able to take away from the experience.
Well, as far as the whole accuracy when pointing at the screen thing goes, to me it shouldn't matter whether or not the pointer is pointing at the right point on the screen. Think about it, when you use a computer mouse the cursor on the screen isn't in the same location as the mouse on your mousepad. The pointer function of the Wiimote should be related to a computer mouse, in that your moving the pointer will move the cursor that amount, not that your pointing at a specific location will place the cursor at that location. Based on the size of your screen and the height of the Wiimote, the pointer may be close to where it should be or not very close at all. If you're not looking at the Wiimote when pointing, instead focusing on the cursor on the screen, you're not even going to notice that the pointer isn't pointing at the cursor. I happen to have a low couch and a big screen, so I have to point up with the Wiimote to pretend that I'm pointing at the screen, and I never even noticed that the pointer didn't match the cursor until I held the remote up to my eye and saw that the cursor was off.
People keep saying it would be a good thing to change the distance between the two sets of LEDs to have better accuracy.
Well in case you didn't know, the Wii settings enable you to change the sensitivity of the Wiimote, which, essentially does the same thing, but in software.
Unless people the maximum and minimum settings to be unsatisfying, it wouldn't serve any purpose to change the distance between LEDs.
Also, when you augment the distance between the LEDS, it means you'll have to make greater movements to move the cursor, is it a desirable thing?
On a computer, when you have a big 30" screen, you set your mouse to go faster than with a 15" screen, not slower.
VL-Tone, while it's true that yes, you'll have to make bigger movements if you set the LEDs further apart, the hope is that it would allow for a more natural aiming system, one such that the position of the cursor on the screen would more closely replicate the actual place one is aiming with the Wiimote.
While I've found that the Sensor Bar works very well and accurately with my 32" TV, I'd still like to try setting two IR LEDs at each end of the screen to see if there was any (noticeable) difference, and also simply cause I like hacking stuff. A lot.
Have you checked the related video from a guy named talljim ripping on the makers of the sensor bar video? Guy is a jerk if i've ever seen one!
lolz, to go even more "primitive"
two candles set up on top of your screen also emit enough IR to use your wii remote ;D
http://www.youtube.com/v/6iW1gKeV3Jc
Dudes, this information has been on the internet for weeks now... just see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiimote. The internal sensors can use dead reckoning, but the longer they are used the more they drift out of alignment; hence the sensor bar as a reference point.
So all plugging the Sensor bar into the Wii does is POWER the bar right? So should the Easiest, most elegant hack to be just splicing the cable coming out of the sensor bar and mating it with something like a Cell Phone AC Adapter, so we could just PLUG the sensor bar into any old outlet? And why, since not all TV set-ups would have the Wii within a few feet of the TV didn't they do this to begin with?
Our cat chewed through the cable for the sensor bar. Tried just spliceing the wires together with no luck. Only after getting an iron and heating the red wire strands first(to melt off the coating) then re-joining the wires were we able to get the bar online again. Since a new bar is only $10 we will be ordering 2 to keep as spares.
Or.. you no the wii comes with the "sensor" bar so I mean..you could use that to :-/
My sensor bar broke the other day when some MORON got their foot tangled in the cord and stepped on it, and after reading this article I realized that I could use candles as a replacement. Low tech, but it works and I don't have to pay 20$ and wait a week for a new sensor bar.
as i understand it, you can use any source of extreme heat. The controller senses it... Try pointing the remote at a candle in a dimly-lit room, in a direction away from your TV. It should work. Try not to burn your wii, tho. =)
people keep saying "gyros" and "multiple accelerometers"... it's just a single ADXL330 chip per wiimote and nunchuk that's got the 3 axis accelerometer in it.
http://www.analog.com/en/prod/0,2877,ADXL330,00.html