Wiimote acceleration values plotted on a PC

While a good number of people who've gotten their hands on a Wii have caused all kinds of damage ranging from a busted window to broken TVs and beer glasses, others are taking a much more careful and measured approach to understanding the Wiimote's true nature. A fellow named Marcan42 on YouTube has put together a video which shows the Wiimote's acceleration values dumped to a computer, the first step necessary in hacking the device. It's anyone's guess how long it'll take to actually transform this raw data over Bluetooth into actual usable gameplay input and mechanics, but those hungry now for at least a video of some hot acceleration charts n' graphs need to no further than past the break.

[Via digg]

[nitefire @ Dec 1st 2006 12:40AM]

regardless whether or not it was in freefall, it will always be accelerating downards at about 9.8 m/s^2. just because you drop it doesn't mean it stops accelerating.

either way, it's cool and am waiting for a fully functional XP driver

[Ward @ Dec 1st 2006 12:51AM]

All I want is a mouse driver for it so I can use it with my HTPC... That would be awesome.

[blah @ Dec 1st 2006 12:56AM]

It's probably only a week away...

[kaztm @ Dec 4th 2006 10:06AM]

"It's probably only a week away..."

How about in a couple of days:

WiinRemote
http://onakasuita.org/wii/index-e.html

[humpty @ Dec 1st 2006 12:56AM]

The springs have weights attached to them; so, when at rest on a table, at east one of them will have a reading of g. In free fall, that attached weight is no longer applying any force to the spring (any spring) and so all the readings are zero.

[zenprime @ Dec 1st 2006 2:03AM]

An Xp driver would make me get a wiimote. And I'm not even found of the dang thing.

[rems @ Dec 1st 2006 2:05AM]

Basically this means you don't have to try to smash your Wiimote in the wall through breaking your weak ristlace in order to have a POWERFULL smash :) !!!

[blurry @ Dec 1st 2006 4:25AM]

Very cool stuff, but good heavens someone buy this guy a tripod!

[Zak @ Dec 1st 2006 5:38AM]

Way, way too much free time.

BUT

If you can hook that up to my xbox 360 I wanna play gears of war with it! I have pre-ordered my Wii and will be picking it up very soon. WHY did they not release the wii in Japan first. I get a bloody job here, get all excited then America gets it first..What is up with that!!

Bit dismayed that all the graphics on the wii they look a little shabby..I love Nintendo stuff but will also buy whatever is good. Maybe not a PS3 though I have seen it running in shops here..not impressed by it yet.

Back to the point... Get that running on Gears of War.. You will make a fortune.

[Dave @ Dec 1st 2006 6:43AM]

PWNED! :D

[Tynan @ Dec 1st 2006 6:50AM]

Cool now I'll have a better reason to buy a wiimote. Mainly for remote use, secondly to bring to my friend's house to use on his Wii. Perfect.

[Andir3.0 @ Dec 1st 2006 7:48AM]

He's one of those people that can't stand still when he talks...rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet (as evident by the first minute or so.) Put the camera on a stand, tripod, stack of books...anything, please!

[Nick @ Dec 1st 2006 9:23AM]

You're going to need a lot more than a driver to map that input onto the gameplay of any button-based system. Someone would have to design a whole control interface. I would say, charitably, that this is an academic project, and that if you want to go swinging at Gears of War, you should just wait for Microsoft to come out with the Xmote, or whatever, at which point you can see personally how ill-suited this controller is to FPS play. Or you could just buy a Wii, play Red Steel once, throw it away, then get on with Zelda.

[Rence @ Dec 1st 2006 9:29AM]

Bring on the universal Wiimote pc driver :)

[justdave @ Dec 1st 2006 9:47AM]

I imagine the remote would be cool for about 5 minutes before you realised how pointless it is. Alright, Zelda and the sports games are cool, but playing any other type of game with this would be a nightmare I reckon - FPS, RTS etc...what's the point?

[Jonathon @ Dec 1st 2006 9:57AM]

So when are the PS3 Linux games coming out that use the wiimote?

[strider_mt2k @ Dec 1st 2006 10:29AM]

This is very interesting!

It seems like this could be applied to some other applications too. Robotics perhaps, or other human interface type stuff.

[carl @ Dec 1st 2006 1:18PM]

nitefire, your physics is phaulty. There's always a force exerted on the object due to the force of gravity, but the object is not always accelerating at 9.8 m/s2. If the wiimote is sitting on a table, The force of gravity pulls down, and the normal force exerted by the table pushes up. The forces cancel, so the net force is zero. since F=ma, and m != 0, then a=0.

[francisew @ Jan 3rd 2007 5:29PM]

Carl,

You misunderstood his frame of reference. The wii accelerometers register the acceleration relative to the device motion. When the device is in free-fall, the accelerometers will not observe additional acceleration, and they will show nothing.

See: http://www.sensorsportal.com/HTML/SENSORS/Accelerometers_Manuf.htm

[Randy @ Dec 1st 2006 5:04PM]

I'm curiuos how was he able to pair with it? I thought all attempts to pair with a wiimote were fruitless. Still, this is very cool!