Wii Hacks – Get The Most Out Of Your Nintendo Wii
The world has seemingly gone crazy over the awesome WiiMote the past couple years. The innovative, high-tech remote controller has actually managed to get some of the world’s most confirmed couch potatoes up onto their feet and swinging their arms. The downside of this is that several of their wives have fainted at the sight, thinking that their husbands had taken up exercising.
Yes, the wireless, motion-sensing controller has made Nintendo’s Wii game console one of the most talked-about items in the world. Anything that enables people to fish in their own living room is worth talking about, I suppose, although a few years ago that would have seemed like a fish story.
But some of the more interesting uses of the controller aren’t part of Nintendo’s official game library. The Wii system has been such a revolutionary concept that as soon as it was introduced, people began hacking it, putting it to some creative uses. Within weeks of Wii’s launch, videos began popping up on YouTube showing Wii hacks of the controller being used to move a PC’s mouse cursor, play Half-Life 2 and even to control a music synthesizer and a drum machine.
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Hackers quickly discovered that the Wii controller was using standard Bluetooth signals for its wireless communication, and that these signals were easily recognized by any personal computer that was equipped with Bluetooth receivers. But for hackers to be able to use those signals, someone had to design software that could interpret those signals coming from the Wiimote.
But, as chance would have it, a programmer named Carl Kenner had already written software for the P5 Glove that, with certain modifications, could do just that. Kenner hit the hacker forums, digesting everything he could, and soon came to realize that the Wiimote worked in a similar manner to the P5 Glove. He immediately began to work on a new version of his P5 software that would recognize the Wiimote’s input, and within days he was able to play the PC game Half-Life 2, using a Wiimote and his modified software.
Soon after this, a hacker named Brandon Epperson put out a video where he showed himself waving the Wiimote around to control the pitch and tone of a Nord Lead synthesizer. In action, it looked and sounded like an invisible Star Wars lightsaber. Epperson said that controllers like the Wii were “the future of technology,” and that they "will eventually replace the keyboard and mouse." Epperson soon after released videos in which he used Wiimote hacks to control video-editing and music-production software. Not long after that, other hackers started coming up with other creative Wii hacks, such as:
- To graphically visualize data in real time
- To control a robotic Airsoft gun
- As a computer mouse
- To control the appliances in their houses, including opening drapes
- To control Keynote presentation
- For graphic visual interactions with eMotion software
- As a protractor, level and measuring tool
- To rapid-fire guns in video games
- For virtual air drums
- To control an RC car
- To interface Google Earth
- To guide a canoe
- To create an interactive multitouch whiteboard display
- To control a lawnmower
- To control a hexapod robot
And all these Wii hacks were in the early days of the Wii by home hackers, not by professional engineers in white suits working for major corporations. They demonstrate the creative ingenuity of everyday people.
One of the most creative of hackers is Johnny Chung Lee, who has a website of his inventions. http://johnnylee.net The Johnny Lee Wii hacks are becoming famous. He has done some awesome work in virtual reality that you should check out if you haven’t already.
While these inventions have been fascinating, and show promise for the future, most gamers are more interested in how these hacks have resulted in creative homebrew. In future blogs we’ll deal with topics like Wii homebrew, Wii points, Wii mod chips, Wii cheats, Wii secrets, and how to play roms on Wii, among other topics. Stay tuned!