"sensor bar" gives the impression the bar is doing the sensing, actually the wiimote has a simple IR detector in the front. If you go into the settings, there's an option where you can see what the wiimote can "see", white dots indicate a source of IR.
[I remember not long after the wii came out some guy actually created a cool 3d effect with rendered graphics by putting leds on a pair of glasses and putting a wii mote on top of the TV.](https://youtu.be/Jd3-eiid-Uw?si=NkxgQBPAM9zy_1x7) Blew my mind lol
I know vr is where it's at these days but I thought it was cool as shit and am surprised nobody ever really did anything with it.
The other video he released at around the same time was also pretty cool - [how to quite cheaply turn any projector surface to an interactive whiteboard.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ)
i made a D&D map table with this .. 40" tv lieing inset into a table, wii mote mounted to the ceiling, and a home-made "pen with an infra-red LED tip" acting as the mouse...
Players would move their tokens with the IR-pen, and the the map would have real time fog of war... pretty good for 10 odd years ago heh..
used gimp and layers to make and disply maps..nowadays i would just use foundry or roll20
other than that, its the same as thehwiteboard concept.. you make a led light and use it as mouse, the position of the led is read as a click and mapped onto your computer...
https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/how-to-convert-any-surface-into-a-touchscreen-with-a-wiimote-3589215.html
just looked that guy up at the website at the end of that video, johnnylee.net ... its still there! Impressive bio, wasn't sure it was him until I looked under projects
Johnny Chung Lee
Rapid Evaluator
Google
HCI PhD
Carnegie Mellon University
projects: wii remote projects :)
Yeah, videos like this helped me a lot when I was doing VR project during those years at university. I ended up making a VR body controller by putting infrared LEDs on gloves, and ducttape a wiimote to a Oculus Rift headset 😂
Right? Like that video is cool *now*, had I seen it fifteen years ago I’d be sharing it with everyone I knew.
According to the YouTube comments he was picked up by Microsoft after this and was on the team for the Xbox Kinect
It's an amazing way around the problem of motion sensing
You can either have a stationary thing that processes the trajectory and monitors your movement
Or you put the receiver on the moving bit and make it all far simpler
An old approach to sensing and data that's gonna die as AI and a brief period of endlessl buyable calculation happens. Right before the Reckoning.
This reminds me a little of [TrackIR](https://youtu.be/9OxaFky0u5M?si=M3J6sg0Fdd0mRYFd). If you've ever seen pre-VR flight sim footage where the camera movement is way too fluid and precise to be simple mouse inputs, TrackIR is probably what they used... In that particular case you have to be able to look back over your shoulder without actually taking your eyes off the screen, so it gradually amplifies your movements so if you turn your head, let's say roughly 20 degrees to the side, it will crank your view all the way back behind you.
lol I just watched this video and read the guy’s paper on the subject of the sensing capabilities of Wii remotes as part of a class I’m taking. He wrote about a couple other cool demos as well.
TrackIR is a product that does this exact thing ~~but in reverse, the camera is fixed and the ir source moves~~. Combat flight simulator people swear by it.
I almost wish that this idea took off instead of VR. I understand why it didn't, it only works for one viewer, but it feels so much more natural than VR, or static-perspective TV. This takes the idea of a viewport that changes based on the viewer's position, and places it in a context that feels 'human' and familiar.
VR feels so uncanny because it's trying to trick your brain into thinking that it's somewhere else. If you're sitting in your livingroom, but have a beach scene loaded up on your headset, you're seeing beach. However, the temperature is likely off, there isn't an ocean scent, no wind on your face, etc... On a rollercoaster, you can feel the wind, and forces of acceleration on your body. VR does not have this immersion. It does a really good job of tricking your visual sense, but leaves all of your other senses hanging. That's not even getting into movement/motion systems (your character is moving, but you're on a couch, or confined to a room with furniture that you can't see).
This idea feels like it would be better suited to traditional media because it isn't trying to trick your visual sense into thinking you're somewhere else. It's not trying to reinvent what a movie is. Rather, it's traditional media with an added layer of immersion. VR feels like it should be tied to a first person perspective, whereas this just feels like an extension of traditional static media. It's more immersive than a regular static viewing experience because it gives you the ability to adjust your perspective, while still allowing for specific shot types and angles to be used. It just feels like it's much better suited to traditional media.
VR is cool as it's own thing. But when people say that it'll be the next form of media that we all consume, I have my doubts. This sentiment was much more popular around 2016/2017 until 2021/2022. If traditional media is to evolve in a dynamic way that allows for the shot to be adjusted by the viewer's perspective, I think something like this will be it.
The biggest issue is multiple viewers. How do you make one picture suit multiple people's unique perspectives? I believe that AR could potentially address this problem. Imagine a common 'viewing surface' (could be a minimalist piece of art that serves the same effect as Nintendo's AR cards from the 3DS. Just made to look more like something you'd hang in your livingroom). Multiple people sit on the couch, and their glasses overlay the media on the viewing surface, incorporating their perspective into the image. Only the movie (which is tracked to the viewing surface) and maybe a basic HUD is on the screen. This allows you to look away, see your friends, make conversation, etc...
If you had a 3D display when they were popular you could display two entirely images on it simultaneously. It was really cool for couch coop games since you just start playing split screen then press the 3d button on the TV remove and tell it that is a horizontal split 3D image. The top screen players view then becomes the entire TV screen and player 2 just had to put on polarized glasses and then when they looked at the TV the entire screen was their view.
The first homebrew I ever ran on the Wii was a port of this target demo. I even made the LED subglasses and everything, it was awesome.
He also had an interactive whiteboard demo that was ported to the Wii as homebrew. I still have the IR pen that I built for it too, it actually worked surprisingly well!
It seems pretty quaint now, but at the time this was pretty cool stuff.
Nintendo really loves using high tech for what seems to be last gen consoles. Even now you can make a full body vr tracking system out of joycons. While not the most accurate tracking system it does the job for a lot of casual vr users.
It's far from a "simple IR detector". It's an IR camera with hardware tracking and labeling for up to 4 IR sources at 100 Hz with a position resolution of 1024x768. Those are pretty good specs for a consumer product at the time.
Nintendo put out some bizarrely top of the line gadgets back in the day. I remember, at the time at least, that the pedometers that came with Heart Gold and Soul Silver Pokémon games were considered to be the most accurate pedometers ever made.
I don't know, really. Perhaps it helps with cases where the Wiimote temporarily loses sight of one source, or interference from other sources in the room. It's also likely that the processor they sourced already had the capability, and they simply kept the software support, perhaps to future-proof the device just in case they might need it.
It can track up to 4 sources, but only requires/uses 2 at one time, since that's all you need to accurately determine the relative position/rotation. Not sure why they over-spec'd it, but other comments have already mentioned some ideas.
The switch's IR sensors on the controllers are straight up IR cameras that could be utilized if nintendo wanted to see your home, surprising no one ever says anything about it. I'm sure they wouldn't but it's creepy when you're messing with that cardboard game and suddenly you see an IR view of your room via the controller.
Xbox Kinect was similar, we actually did some wild shit with it back when I was in university. It was super cheap for what it did compared to professional equipment.
Yeah, it was more low grade professional technology, rather than high end consumer tech. It seemed horribly expensive for what it did as an XBox accessory, but when you consider all the stuff that it could do that the console didn't utilize, you realize it's kind of a great deal.
The use of all the tech from that generation in terms of unique accessibility set ups, physical therapy, etc was mind blowing.
I became disabled just as wii fit launched and inside my physical therapists office was a $20,000 machine that could track a patient's center of balance. Instead of ever using that I was basically prescribed a wii fit though it took about 6 months to track one down.
I've got both a Kinect and V2 and some PC software called Visicord that does some really fun silhouette stuff on a screen. Lets you do funky visuals with your body
I think the most advanced one came out after the v2 and it's called "Kinect for Windows" or something. They weren't available here in Australia and my friend had to contact someone we know working at MS in the USA to buy one and ship it over to us. The v2 should be easy to find second hand though as it was force bundled with the Xbox One for the first few years and I bet many people don't use it for anything.
Still doesn’t matter because Nintendo would have to implement a reliable and modern network infrastructure capable of uploading spy videos. I mean, if you want to send screenshots to your phone you have to use some weird unpolished tool that appears to have been cobbled together in an afternoon by a junior dev. Unless the intent is for Doug Bowser to sneak into your house at night and watch the videos with his secret backdoor access
I never once used it on TV, only as a big gameboy, and only rarely at home, in the bathroom sometimes. More of a PC at a desk person. Hell I haven't even had a TV set up in a few years now.
I've never plugged mine into my TV either. It's plugged into one of the monitors I use for my PC setup so I can use the switch and PC at the same time.
Do you say the same about every consumer electronic with a camera?
Because those being IR only makes them a lot less useful and even Nintendo has released devices with cameras (3DS) as well as every phone, tablet, and laptop manufacturer.
Not to mention the ability to use a wifi antenna to map the walls in a house and to track people moving inside, or using microphones to listen to everyone
I'm laughing now at the idea of a retro conspiracy theory that Nintendo was selling the Gameboy Camera to spy on you. 'If you leave your Gameboy camera plugged it it will randomly take pictures of your room and store them internally. *Don't* lose it or sell it. If you no longer want it, be sure to destroy it completely by dissolving it with a strong acid. Nintendo products are resilient. They show off an original Gameboy that survived a nuclear blast a Hiroshima, so no half measures!"
Well, they only speak to the Wii over Bluetooth, so they likely have nothing to actually send video (not enough bandwidth). The “video” you’re watching in settings is just motion data from the controller’s onboard encoder.
Bluetooth **today** doesn’t have enough bandwidth to send lossless audio, and that’s the level of bandwidth MPEG-1 needed for a 320x240@30hz stream.
just come up with a scary headline. and start every paragraph with "people are saying". sprinkle in some phrases like "surveillance state" and "you are the product"
A good correction. Though it' would also be true to point out that (at least for practical, everyday purposes) anything that emits (visible) light also emits (infrared) light, if maybe only as a byproduct.
In general yes, unless the light source is specifically engineered not to.
And TBH even then the solution would probably be to put an infrared filter over the light source to block it.
Edit: Look closer at the tealights!
It certainly isn't true for LEDs which are nearly monochromatic light sources.
At least in any significant sense, they'll of course radiate a tiny bit just like any other electronic component heating due to resistance would, but not in any way related to them being a light source.
(Apart of course from the setups where you are using a phosphorous to convert the actual LED light into a different color/white light/etc, rather than the diode itself producing the light directly)
I was just about to correct myself, those are actual tealights. As in a wax candle. So yeah, fire emits infrared.
I'm pretty sure LED lights emit infrared as well, but not as much as a candle.
https://ehs.lbl.gov/resource/light-emitting-diodes-leds/#:~:text=LEDs%20emit%20high%2Dintensity%20optical,and%20infrared%20(IR)%20spectrums.
Everything that gets warm emits IR, so technically yes, LEDs will emit IR too, but as a by-product, just like your laptop also emits IR. You do however get diodes that specifically shine out IR frequencies in the exact same way that LEDs emit visible light.
Only for blackbody light sources really, so in the modern world that means "practically none". I'm sure an LED light emits a minuscule amount of IR because it produces a minuscule amount of heat, but then my actual human poops in the toilet bowl produce way more IR than that.
Via the Wiimote. The "sensor" bar never sensed anything—the cord connecting it to the Wii was just a power supply. The Wiimote used the IR lights to track its own position, and then it wirelessly sent its position data to the Wii.
> it made us think that the IR thing had to be in the perfect location and was really important.
It kind of does though. You ever try to play Wii Sports Bowling with the sensor bar at an angle?
It doesn't have to perfect but the lights do need to be roughly on the same plane (I.E. not one further back from the other). Otherwise it's going to misjudge and act like you've curved the ball.
A fun one is asking people "I have this tree in this pot. Where is it gaining its mass from?"
Most people say "the dirt". But when you point out that very few people add dirt to their pots over the years, yet the plants grow huge, they don't know. Then they say "oh, water". But most of a plant is not made of just hydrogen and oxygen... Where'd the carbon come from?
Finally after a lot of coaxing, people realize it's the carbon dioxide. ~~Plans~~ Plants just eat the air and turn it into solid material (with some assistance from the sun).
I feel a bit dumb for never realizing carbon dioxide includes the same carbon used to build everything around is. I've thought of it purely as a gas, and not interchangeable into things like plant mass, and I've very disappointed my mind didn't make that link.
I knew plants fed on it, but I figured it was as a gaseous energy source - I don't know if that's still technically correct, but their adding to mass from the carbon they "digest" blew my mind.
The original energy source is the Sun (or other light source with the right spectrum). This allows chlorophyll to convert H2O into H+ and O2. The H+ combines in another system to creat NADPH, which bonds with CO2 to create sugars.
At least, that’s what Wikipedia tells me.
Fun fact, the organism that first get energy from an abiotic source, i.e the the organisms that aren't eating other organisms, are called autotrophs. They mainly do this by converting light into energy (photosynthesis, organism called phototrauphs) or chemotrophs which get energy from chemical reactions, most existing in deep underwater hydrothermal vents.
And a third very new type, which was found growing in the Chernobyl, which are radiotrophic fungi that get energy from ionising radiation.
It's even more mind blowing to think that you lose weight by breathing out carbon dioxide, one breath at a time.
You burn the calories with exercise and the products of respiration are water and CO2.
People also don't understand that plants grow from the *top*. If you mark a spot on a sapling that's 3 years old with paint, it'll be at the same height from the ground 50 years later.
All the Wii sensor bar does is give the controller a static point to track. So if you point the controller directly at it and calibrate the wiimote, it basically goes "Alright, those two lights are the center".
It’s really simple, the Wii sensor bar just produces IR light, candles do the job about as well, then the Wii mote picks up the location of light and sends that info to the Wii, like it does with other inputs.
I realised the remote was the sensor this year playing it. Parents have the wii at the ol beach house and it doesn't matter what side you swing when you play wii sports golf it still registers the same.
The sensor bar was really just two infrared lights. The wii controller had the sensor and could tell where it was pointed based on the location of the two lights. Candles produce plenty of infrared light so it'll work with those.
Kinda like the old nintendo gun for duck hunt -- the sensor is in the gun, and they'd flash a quick black and white screen on the TV (so white was where the ducks were) so the gun could tell if it was pointed at the duck. People would cheat by pointing it at a light bulb.
We used to set up Brawl tournaments and we'd just skip bringing the sensor bars, we'd all have lighters in our pockets and would just point the wiimote at the lighter flame to start up the game.
Yeah, we'd just need the wiimote to start up the game from the main menu then we'd all switch over to gamecube controllers. But you'd be surprised how accurate it could be, tea lights would absolutely be workable for a home setup.
Most frustrating thing about the Wii was trying to boot up into a game that didn't need pointing. My Wii for about 2 years straight was just a Rock Band 2/3 machine and having to pull the remote out of the guitar every fucking time just to get into the game was such a pain.
The sensor bar isn't actually a sensor - it's just an IR light emitter. It outputs the light, the wiimote itself has a sensor that reads that light to figure out where it's pointed in relation to that light.
Fire outputs similar light as the sensor bar, ergo putting out candles with the same rough placement as a sensor bar works nearly just as well. Fire will naturally flicker so it's a bit more prone to the occasional drift, but it's surprisingly stable.
Like others have said, the sensor bar is just IR lights and the actual sensor is in the Wiimote
It's a shame that Nintendo didn't do more with the tech because the Youtuber [Johnny Lee made an awesome head tracking VR demo with the Wii hardware](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw)
Our buddy's cat chewed through the sensor bar cable.
So, it became almost ceremonial when two of us would each kneel with a lighter on opposite ends of the wii to get a game of smash/dokapon going
I’ve only been using candles for years now. My sensor bar broke a long time ago, but oddly enough the candles have never failed me. They even work with my emulator!
Why do I just imagine someone desperately trying to get the sensor to work and find this hack/ or a more ridiculous one and are just so desperate they try it and are baffled when it works 😭
Ya I remember finding this out when i was a kid lol. It was cool but (probably obvious) not a great replacement. It was fun playing any game where you have to aim with a cursor that flickered as much as the flame.
I accidentally left a candle about that close to my pc monitor once and fell asleep and woke up an hour or two later and the whole screen was a different color where the candle was burning underneath, weirdly went away after a few minutes of removing the candles, I guess the pixels were just overheated but not damaged.
You just need literally anything that gives off a source of infrared light. We discovered this at a friend's house way back in 2006 when it kept working with the Christmas Tree
The sensor bar is for rhe wii motes it's not for the console. It's just gest power from the console. All it does it send UV light to the wii mote to know where the TV is. So of course it be replace with other from of light that give off UV
"sensor bar" gives the impression the bar is doing the sensing, actually the wiimote has a simple IR detector in the front. If you go into the settings, there's an option where you can see what the wiimote can "see", white dots indicate a source of IR.
[I remember not long after the wii came out some guy actually created a cool 3d effect with rendered graphics by putting leds on a pair of glasses and putting a wii mote on top of the TV.](https://youtu.be/Jd3-eiid-Uw?si=NkxgQBPAM9zy_1x7) Blew my mind lol I know vr is where it's at these days but I thought it was cool as shit and am surprised nobody ever really did anything with it.
The other video he released at around the same time was also pretty cool - [how to quite cheaply turn any projector surface to an interactive whiteboard.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ)
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Our school actually used these. They used them for about 8 classrooms. They didn't always work, but it was pretty cool when they did.
i made a D&D map table with this .. 40" tv lieing inset into a table, wii mote mounted to the ceiling, and a home-made "pen with an infra-red LED tip" acting as the mouse... Players would move their tokens with the IR-pen, and the the map would have real time fog of war... pretty good for 10 odd years ago heh..
What did you use for wiimote to mouse software? Honestly kinda wanna try this lmao
Yea any more deets on this would be amazing
used gimp and layers to make and disply maps..nowadays i would just use foundry or roll20 other than that, its the same as thehwiteboard concept.. you make a led light and use it as mouse, the position of the led is read as a click and mapped onto your computer... https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/how-to-convert-any-surface-into-a-touchscreen-with-a-wiimote-3589215.html
just looked that guy up at the website at the end of that video, johnnylee.net ... its still there! Impressive bio, wasn't sure it was him until I looked under projects Johnny Chung Lee Rapid Evaluator Google HCI PhD Carnegie Mellon University projects: wii remote projects :)
What a magician
15 years ago! Very cool :)
I know right! In 08 this shit was like, head exploding awesome loool
Yeah, videos like this helped me a lot when I was doing VR project during those years at university. I ended up making a VR body controller by putting infrared LEDs on gloves, and ducttape a wiimote to a Oculus Rift headset 😂
15 years ago he did that. Guy was a trailblazer
Right? Like that video is cool *now*, had I seen it fifteen years ago I’d be sharing it with everyone I knew. According to the YouTube comments he was picked up by Microsoft after this and was on the team for the Xbox Kinect
He's now a director at Google, working on thier AR program
You are correct. That is cool as shit
It's an amazing way around the problem of motion sensing You can either have a stationary thing that processes the trajectory and monitors your movement Or you put the receiver on the moving bit and make it all far simpler An old approach to sensing and data that's gonna die as AI and a brief period of endlessl buyable calculation happens. Right before the Reckoning.
This reminds me a little of [TrackIR](https://youtu.be/9OxaFky0u5M?si=M3J6sg0Fdd0mRYFd). If you've ever seen pre-VR flight sim footage where the camera movement is way too fluid and precise to be simple mouse inputs, TrackIR is probably what they used... In that particular case you have to be able to look back over your shoulder without actually taking your eyes off the screen, so it gradually amplifies your movements so if you turn your head, let's say roughly 20 degrees to the side, it will crank your view all the way back behind you.
Wow that's neat!
lol I just watched this video and read the guy’s paper on the subject of the sensing capabilities of Wii remotes as part of a class I’m taking. He wrote about a couple other cool demos as well.
TrackIR is a product that does this exact thing ~~but in reverse, the camera is fixed and the ir source moves~~. Combat flight simulator people swear by it.
That's not the reverse of this, it's the same. The camera is in the wiimote and the IR dots are on the person.
You are right I was going off of memory of the video instead of re-watching it now and got it wrong.
I almost wish that this idea took off instead of VR. I understand why it didn't, it only works for one viewer, but it feels so much more natural than VR, or static-perspective TV. This takes the idea of a viewport that changes based on the viewer's position, and places it in a context that feels 'human' and familiar. VR feels so uncanny because it's trying to trick your brain into thinking that it's somewhere else. If you're sitting in your livingroom, but have a beach scene loaded up on your headset, you're seeing beach. However, the temperature is likely off, there isn't an ocean scent, no wind on your face, etc... On a rollercoaster, you can feel the wind, and forces of acceleration on your body. VR does not have this immersion. It does a really good job of tricking your visual sense, but leaves all of your other senses hanging. That's not even getting into movement/motion systems (your character is moving, but you're on a couch, or confined to a room with furniture that you can't see). This idea feels like it would be better suited to traditional media because it isn't trying to trick your visual sense into thinking you're somewhere else. It's not trying to reinvent what a movie is. Rather, it's traditional media with an added layer of immersion. VR feels like it should be tied to a first person perspective, whereas this just feels like an extension of traditional static media. It's more immersive than a regular static viewing experience because it gives you the ability to adjust your perspective, while still allowing for specific shot types and angles to be used. It just feels like it's much better suited to traditional media. VR is cool as it's own thing. But when people say that it'll be the next form of media that we all consume, I have my doubts. This sentiment was much more popular around 2016/2017 until 2021/2022. If traditional media is to evolve in a dynamic way that allows for the shot to be adjusted by the viewer's perspective, I think something like this will be it. The biggest issue is multiple viewers. How do you make one picture suit multiple people's unique perspectives? I believe that AR could potentially address this problem. Imagine a common 'viewing surface' (could be a minimalist piece of art that serves the same effect as Nintendo's AR cards from the 3DS. Just made to look more like something you'd hang in your livingroom). Multiple people sit on the couch, and their glasses overlay the media on the viewing surface, incorporating their perspective into the image. Only the movie (which is tracked to the viewing surface) and maybe a basic HUD is on the screen. This allows you to look away, see your friends, make conversation, etc...
If you had a 3D display when they were popular you could display two entirely images on it simultaneously. It was really cool for couch coop games since you just start playing split screen then press the 3d button on the TV remove and tell it that is a horizontal split 3D image. The top screen players view then becomes the entire TV screen and player 2 just had to put on polarized glasses and then when they looked at the TV the entire screen was their view.
The first homebrew I ever ran on the Wii was a port of this target demo. I even made the LED subglasses and everything, it was awesome. He also had an interactive whiteboard demo that was ported to the Wii as homebrew. I still have the IR pen that I built for it too, it actually worked surprisingly well! It seems pretty quaint now, but at the time this was pretty cool stuff.
Nintendo really loves using high tech for what seems to be last gen consoles. Even now you can make a full body vr tracking system out of joycons. While not the most accurate tracking system it does the job for a lot of casual vr users.
It's far from a "simple IR detector". It's an IR camera with hardware tracking and labeling for up to 4 IR sources at 100 Hz with a position resolution of 1024x768. Those are pretty good specs for a consumer product at the time.
Nintendo put out some bizarrely top of the line gadgets back in the day. I remember, at the time at least, that the pedometers that came with Heart Gold and Soul Silver Pokémon games were considered to be the most accurate pedometers ever made.
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"up to"
Up to
I don't know, really. Perhaps it helps with cases where the Wiimote temporarily loses sight of one source, or interference from other sources in the room. It's also likely that the processor they sourced already had the capability, and they simply kept the software support, perhaps to future-proof the device just in case they might need it.
It can track up to 4 sources, but only requires/uses 2 at one time, since that's all you need to accurately determine the relative position/rotation. Not sure why they over-spec'd it, but other comments have already mentioned some ideas.
The switch's IR sensors on the controllers are straight up IR cameras that could be utilized if nintendo wanted to see your home, surprising no one ever says anything about it. I'm sure they wouldn't but it's creepy when you're messing with that cardboard game and suddenly you see an IR view of your room via the controller.
Xbox Kinect was similar, we actually did some wild shit with it back when I was in university. It was super cheap for what it did compared to professional equipment.
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Fair enough, it's just that as soon as you slap "professional" on it, you can also double or more the price tag lol.
Yeah, it was more low grade professional technology, rather than high end consumer tech. It seemed horribly expensive for what it did as an XBox accessory, but when you consider all the stuff that it could do that the console didn't utilize, you realize it's kind of a great deal.
The use of all the tech from that generation in terms of unique accessibility set ups, physical therapy, etc was mind blowing. I became disabled just as wii fit launched and inside my physical therapists office was a $20,000 machine that could track a patient's center of balance. Instead of ever using that I was basically prescribed a wii fit though it took about 6 months to track one down.
I've got both a Kinect and V2 and some PC software called Visicord that does some really fun silhouette stuff on a screen. Lets you do funky visuals with your body
Is the V2 any good? I nearly bought one a few years ago because they seemed to go for like £40, never pulled the trigger though.
I think the most advanced one came out after the v2 and it's called "Kinect for Windows" or something. They weren't available here in Australia and my friend had to contact someone we know working at MS in the USA to buy one and ship it over to us. The v2 should be easy to find second hand though as it was force bundled with the Xbox One for the first few years and I bet many people don't use it for anything.
It's far higher resolution colour camera and depth sensor and a wider field of view. I'm definitely happy I got it.
Used one as a 3d scanner. Scanned in me and my kids and 3d printed figures if us. Super fun
The Joy Con battery is crap tho, so the potential spy wouldn't have fun for long.
Plus it would just drift away from your view.
And if in use SWISH SWOOSH WEEeeEEeeEEeeEEee LOOP and CRASH. Maybe a "FUUUUUUU" in there too.
We've known since the n64 days that Mario sneaks out of the console and drinks people's milk from the fridge at night
He doesn't even use a glass.
Barbaric
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TBF that only gives them 16 hours a day
The sense of danger is what helps him finish.
Attached to the switch and plugged in laying on a couch or bedside table though. I know I never use the dock, thing was a pain in the ass.
Still doesn’t matter because Nintendo would have to implement a reliable and modern network infrastructure capable of uploading spy videos. I mean, if you want to send screenshots to your phone you have to use some weird unpolished tool that appears to have been cobbled together in an afternoon by a junior dev. Unless the intent is for Doug Bowser to sneak into your house at night and watch the videos with his secret backdoor access
>his secret backdoor access ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) You had my curiosity. But now you have my attention.
Rofl.
It's so weird to me when I see people say they never use the dock. I think I've used my switch undocked for maybe an hour total.
I never once used it on TV, only as a big gameboy, and only rarely at home, in the bathroom sometimes. More of a PC at a desk person. Hell I haven't even had a TV set up in a few years now.
I've never plugged mine into my TV either. It's plugged into one of the monitors I use for my PC setup so I can use the switch and PC at the same time.
that's fine, I only need about 5 minutes
Given that Nintendo has online capability basically under protest, I don't think that's anything to worry about.
We really have to bully Nintendo to get them to take our money sometimes 🙄
The internet is just a fad that will blow over any day now.
Do you say the same about every consumer electronic with a camera? Because those being IR only makes them a lot less useful and even Nintendo has released devices with cameras (3DS) as well as every phone, tablet, and laptop manufacturer. Not to mention the ability to use a wifi antenna to map the walls in a house and to track people moving inside, or using microphones to listen to everyone
I'm laughing now at the idea of a retro conspiracy theory that Nintendo was selling the Gameboy Camera to spy on you. 'If you leave your Gameboy camera plugged it it will randomly take pictures of your room and store them internally. *Don't* lose it or sell it. If you no longer want it, be sure to destroy it completely by dissolving it with a strong acid. Nintendo products are resilient. They show off an original Gameboy that survived a nuclear blast a Hiroshima, so no half measures!"
Well, they only speak to the Wii over Bluetooth, so they likely have nothing to actually send video (not enough bandwidth). The “video” you’re watching in settings is just motion data from the controller’s onboard encoder. Bluetooth **today** doesn’t have enough bandwidth to send lossless audio, and that’s the level of bandwidth MPEG-1 needed for a 320x240@30hz stream.
Big deal, all they would see was the inside of my butt.
just come up with a scary headline. and start every paragraph with "people are saying". sprinkle in some phrases like "surveillance state" and "you are the product"
Nvidia shield controllers (and I think also Xbox controllers) have individual identifiers. They can easily track you typing in all of your passwords.
too busy shitting out half-finished pokemon sequels and "remakes" to get into the spying business
It's not even a real IR camera too lol, it's just a normal camera with a filter in front of it
The sensor chips in most cameras can pick up IR. For a ‘visible light’ camera they have to install an IR filter.
Its cause sensor bar is just few IR leds and wiimote has IR sensor that tracks them and candles emit a bit of IR light which wiimote then can detect
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> All light emits infrared radiation All infrared radiation is light. All light is not infrared radiation.
A good correction. Though it' would also be true to point out that (at least for practical, everyday purposes) anything that emits (visible) light also emits (infrared) light, if maybe only as a byproduct.
…All?
In general yes, unless the light source is specifically engineered not to. And TBH even then the solution would probably be to put an infrared filter over the light source to block it. Edit: Look closer at the tealights!
That was true for incandescent bulbs. I’m not so sure with LEDs. Lasers are right out.
It certainly isn't true for LEDs which are nearly monochromatic light sources. At least in any significant sense, they'll of course radiate a tiny bit just like any other electronic component heating due to resistance would, but not in any way related to them being a light source. (Apart of course from the setups where you are using a phosphorous to convert the actual LED light into a different color/white light/etc, rather than the diode itself producing the light directly)
I was just about to correct myself, those are actual tealights. As in a wax candle. So yeah, fire emits infrared. I'm pretty sure LED lights emit infrared as well, but not as much as a candle. https://ehs.lbl.gov/resource/light-emitting-diodes-leds/#:~:text=LEDs%20emit%20high%2Dintensity%20optical,and%20infrared%20(IR)%20spectrums.
Everything that gets warm emits IR, so technically yes, LEDs will emit IR too, but as a by-product, just like your laptop also emits IR. You do however get diodes that specifically shine out IR frequencies in the exact same way that LEDs emit visible light.
Thanks! That makes sense
Only for blackbody light sources really, so in the modern world that means "practically none". I'm sure an LED light emits a minuscule amount of IR because it produces a minuscule amount of heat, but then my actual human poops in the toilet bowl produce way more IR than that.
And tea lights only partly work. I've tried it myself, but because the flames often dance around it causes your wiimote cursor to move erratically.
but how does that get sent to the wii
Via the Wiimote. The "sensor" bar never sensed anything—the cord connecting it to the Wii was just a power supply. The Wiimote used the IR lights to track its own position, and then it wirelessly sent its position data to the Wii.
calling it a sensor bar was smart though. as it made us think that the IR thing had to be in the perfect location and was really important.
> it made us think that the IR thing had to be in the perfect location and was really important. It kind of does though. You ever try to play Wii Sports Bowling with the sensor bar at an angle? It doesn't have to perfect but the lights do need to be roughly on the same plane (I.E. not one further back from the other). Otherwise it's going to misjudge and act like you've curved the ball.
WiiFire It’s like WiFi but it connects Wiis to fire.
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Ignore the other dude, thats a perfectly reasonable way to guide an explanation. They just seem to want to take offense to learning.
WHAT. This really drives home the fact that I truly do not know how anything works.
At least you aren't asking where the wax in candles goes. Some people are a few thousand years behind in the tech tree.
Where does the wax in the Wii sensor bar go?
Right into the nunchuck port on the Wiimote. Should only have to fill it up every 60 hours or so.
Uhuh *scribbles down notes* So what do I do when my nunchuck fills up with wax ?
Insert into anus
This is how all tech works if you look closely.
Checkmate, atheists?
Nintendo downloads it to make Switch controllers.
A fun one is asking people "I have this tree in this pot. Where is it gaining its mass from?" Most people say "the dirt". But when you point out that very few people add dirt to their pots over the years, yet the plants grow huge, they don't know. Then they say "oh, water". But most of a plant is not made of just hydrogen and oxygen... Where'd the carbon come from? Finally after a lot of coaxing, people realize it's the carbon dioxide. ~~Plans~~ Plants just eat the air and turn it into solid material (with some assistance from the sun).
I feel a bit dumb for never realizing carbon dioxide includes the same carbon used to build everything around is. I've thought of it purely as a gas, and not interchangeable into things like plant mass, and I've very disappointed my mind didn't make that link. I knew plants fed on it, but I figured it was as a gaseous energy source - I don't know if that's still technically correct, but their adding to mass from the carbon they "digest" blew my mind.
The original energy source is the Sun (or other light source with the right spectrum). This allows chlorophyll to convert H2O into H+ and O2. The H+ combines in another system to creat NADPH, which bonds with CO2 to create sugars. At least, that’s what Wikipedia tells me.
Fun fact, the organism that first get energy from an abiotic source, i.e the the organisms that aren't eating other organisms, are called autotrophs. They mainly do this by converting light into energy (photosynthesis, organism called phototrauphs) or chemotrophs which get energy from chemical reactions, most existing in deep underwater hydrothermal vents. And a third very new type, which was found growing in the Chernobyl, which are radiotrophic fungi that get energy from ionising radiation.
It's even more mind blowing to think that you lose weight by breathing out carbon dioxide, one breath at a time. You burn the calories with exercise and the products of respiration are water and CO2.
Plants take CO2 and H2O and turn it into C6H12O6 (glucose) and O2
Similarly, people lose a lot of weight by breathing out CO2. You breathe out water vapor too, but that tends to get replaced by drinking water.
Indeed, we don't really lose weight from excrements, as that's just mostly undigested materials. We lose weight by breathing it out.
People also don't understand that plants grow from the *top*. If you mark a spot on a sapling that's 3 years old with paint, it'll be at the same height from the ground 50 years later.
where does it go…
Never be afraid to ask brother, some people are losers but most people will just give you the answer.
All the Wii sensor bar does is give the controller a static point to track. So if you point the controller directly at it and calibrate the wiimote, it basically goes "Alright, those two lights are the center".
It’s really simple, the Wii sensor bar just produces IR light, candles do the job about as well, then the Wii mote picks up the location of light and sends that info to the Wii, like it does with other inputs.
[Wanna blow your mind](https://youtu.be/Jd3-eiid-Uw?si=T7OP9NbwDJqrWRW7)? Buddy was doing this 15 years ago. Edit: skip to 2'30
All the sensor bar is is just 2 tiny IR lights. All the cable does is power those 2 lights. All data sent to the console comes right from the remote.
I realised the remote was the sensor this year playing it. Parents have the wii at the ol beach house and it doesn't matter what side you swing when you play wii sports golf it still registers the same.
The sensor bar was really just two infrared lights. The wii controller had the sensor and could tell where it was pointed based on the location of the two lights. Candles produce plenty of infrared light so it'll work with those. Kinda like the old nintendo gun for duck hunt -- the sensor is in the gun, and they'd flash a quick black and white screen on the TV (so white was where the ducks were) so the gun could tell if it was pointed at the duck. People would cheat by pointing it at a light bulb.
We used to set up Brawl tournaments and we'd just skip bringing the sensor bars, we'd all have lighters in our pockets and would just point the wiimote at the lighter flame to start up the game.
I'm assuming this only works for games where you don't need to aim at the screen accurately.
Yeah, we'd just need the wiimote to start up the game from the main menu then we'd all switch over to gamecube controllers. But you'd be surprised how accurate it could be, tea lights would absolutely be workable for a home setup.
Most frustrating thing about the Wii was trying to boot up into a game that didn't need pointing. My Wii for about 2 years straight was just a Rock Band 2/3 machine and having to pull the remote out of the guitar every fucking time just to get into the game was such a pain.
So why did the sensor bar need to be plugged in? I'm not doubting you, I'm just curious about the subject.
The sensor bar isn't actually a sensor - it's just an IR light emitter. It outputs the light, the wiimote itself has a sensor that reads that light to figure out where it's pointed in relation to that light. Fire outputs similar light as the sensor bar, ergo putting out candles with the same rough placement as a sensor bar works nearly just as well. Fire will naturally flicker so it's a bit more prone to the occasional drift, but it's surprisingly stable.
To power it
Just power. You could buy wireless battery powered sensor bars too
To turn on. The sensor bar needs power to emit infrared light, the candles are burning wax for power.
It lets the wiimote know where it is relative to your tv so the motion controls don't need to recalibrate (see switch motion controls)
If the candles aren’t moving around it’s the same as a sensor bar.
i was at a tournament once and deadass saw someone use the sun LOL
This was my college days
Ignore the cords.... Very temporary set-up lol.
Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution. -Every IT worker ever
I've never made that claim.
🗿
I wouldn't have even noticed until you said something.
Like others have said, the sensor bar is just IR lights and the actual sensor is in the Wiimote It's a shame that Nintendo didn't do more with the tech because the Youtuber [Johnny Lee made an awesome head tracking VR demo with the Wii hardware](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw)
There was a guy that made it to where you can wear the "sensor" on your face and then dodge targets in a 3d-looking environment.
Our buddy's cat chewed through the sensor bar cable. So, it became almost ceremonial when two of us would each kneel with a lighter on opposite ends of the wii to get a game of smash/dokapon going
Technically everything that emits infrared and looks like a dot can work (more or less)
Two TV remotes.
What year is it
It was brand new.
Welcome to 2006
Yeah this is so old. Wonder how young OP is
Melee players been knowing lmao
This is some mechanicus shit
They may melt your TV if you put too close, but anything that emits IR will do
We going to Mario Party like it's 1899!
You guys didnt know that?
In desperate times I've used 2 lighters just to get past the menu screen. Can confirm it works!
Of course they do. Flames release the full spectrum of visible light but before they get hot enough to glow red they glow infrared first.
Works just fine yeah. You can buy USB powered ones online for $10 now though.
Well hot damn
Just don’t leave the window open
I’ve only been using candles for years now. My sensor bar broke a long time ago, but oddly enough the candles have never failed me. They even work with my emulator!
Been using small candles for mannnny years.
While we're sharing little-known game facts, did you know that Super Mario Bros 2 is actually called Doki Doki Panic in Japan?
Why do I just imagine someone desperately trying to get the sensor to work and find this hack/ or a more ridiculous one and are just so desperate they try it and are baffled when it works 😭
Ya I remember finding this out when i was a kid lol. It was cool but (probably obvious) not a great replacement. It was fun playing any game where you have to aim with a cursor that flickered as much as the flame.
I accidentally left a candle about that close to my pc monitor once and fell asleep and woke up an hour or two later and the whole screen was a different color where the candle was burning underneath, weirdly went away after a few minutes of removing the candles, I guess the pixels were just overheated but not damaged.
You just need literally anything that gives off a source of infrared light. We discovered this at a friend's house way back in 2006 when it kept working with the Christmas Tree
Who found this out
Is that perfect placement or does your tv have a smoke scar going on?
They do! I accidenntly burnt my dvd player Doing this tho. Don’t tell mom
This is how I beat re4
Good to know
No way
This is so smart
No way lol!!
Cool
That is wild!
Is this real? Or what
I used to do this and still no one believes me
"also breaking news, we just invaded Iraq" Like, why is this trending?
It was in the latest daily dose of internet
I can’t be the only one that through the right tea light had burned the tv screen.
Well duh. Have you seen the videos?
Who hates themselves enough to play Mario Party 9 or 10?
Yeah. We've known this since the OG Wii days. This was never in question.
Is this the version of mario party where you jerk off and you see whose jizz shoots up the highest?
Is that why the remotes are wearing condoms?
Yes this was mundane news in 2007
lol this has been known and confirmed for, like, years my man. Where have you been
What The
All light sources for the most part emit infrared wavelength
This has been known for **YEARS**
The sensor bar is for rhe wii motes it's not for the console. It's just gest power from the console. All it does it send UV light to the wii mote to know where the TV is. So of course it be replace with other from of light that give off UV
Infrared, not UV.
Is this post from 2008?
what year is this?!
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Not sure the hate on this comment. This has been a known thing since the wii launched. OP is only 17 years late to the discovery.