I'm confused with the sensor bar business...

[hyproVision]

People have told me that there is a way to use another source of light(i.e candles) instead of the Wii's Sensor Bar... How is this possible? Don't you need to connect the sensor bar to the back of your wii?

 

[Deathmetalmaster]

the sensor bar only plugs into the wii for power. the wii remote senses the rays of the two IR emitters and transmits the triangulated information via bluetooth to the wii.

 

[hyproVision]

Oh right... So what's with all those videos using just candles? Do they still have the Wii Sensor bar plugged in or something?

 

[Redan499]

No they dont, somehow the candles give off the same thing that the Sensor Bar does. The sensor bar only acts as a reference point for the Wiimote but the Wii actually picks up the Wiimote and controls it on screen. That might not be 100% correct what i just stated, but thats what ive gathered from a lot of videos ive watched about the sensor bar.

 

[hyproVision]

If that is true what you just stated then surely this is "hackable"? I.E - Send signals of data back to the Wii allowing a backdoor into the system software? Just a thought.

 

[Deathmetalmaster]

If that is true what you just stated then surely this is "hackable"? I.E - Send signals of data back to the Wii allowing a backdoor into the system software? Just a thought.

uhhhh. what?

dude, the sensor bar has two points on it. They both send out infared rays. The wii remote triangulates its self between these two and transmits its position in 3d space back to the wii. The sensor bar is nothing more than a LIGHT bar. the wii remote does all the work. as long as you have two points of light so the wii remote can triangulate its self, it will work. plugged in to the wii or not.

 

[hyproVision]

Ohhhhh right! xD Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[dakster]

Actually, the sensor bar appears to have more than just two lights, although they're in two groups.

If you want to "see" them, use a digital camera (or cellphone camera). The CCD's in them pick up the light (works for remote controls too). I used the crappy camera in my cellphone to check it out, but can't actually remember how many IR lights there were.

I would imagine if you had two candles roughly the right distance apart, and their flame is putting out infrared light, then it would work fine. Would be fun to try actually, if you moved the candles (or any other bogus IR transmitters) further apart you would be tricking the wiimote into thinking it's closer to the screen than it is, assuming all of it's distance from the screen estimates are based upon the observed distance between the two lights. Might open up that "cone" of accurate pointing with the wiimote some more.

 

[James19]

There are 5 seperate lights on each side of the sensor bar so that makes 10 all together, it's quite fun to check for yourself using a cell phone camera:cornut:

 

[Tri]

There are 5 seperate lights on each side of the sensor bar so that makes 10 all together, it's quite fun to check for yourself using a cell phone camera:cornut:

He is correct, I checked it last night and came up with this config:

Imagine this as your sensor bar...
[ 0 000 0 ================================= 0 000 0 ]


'0' = sensor
'=' = plastic bar

 

[dakster]

Just to nitpick, they aren't sensors at all. They're just lights, the sensor is in the wiimote itself. The cable to the wii is only for supplying power to the lights, no data is actually transferred over this cable. Them wiimotes are quite impressive little gadgets....