For some reason it never occurred to me that the innovative and fun Wiimote uses Bluetooth for its wirelessness. Most companies are, let's face it, evil (Sony). They insist on using proprietary technology that's not compatible with anything. But not Nintendo. The Wiimote uses Bluetooth and good ol' IR. So I shouldn't have been surprised to find that there's a growing community of users finding ways to use the Wiimote on the PC.
I don't need to tell you that there's a lot of potential in that idea. Replacing the mouse in FPS games, making homebrew PC games using the Wiimote, etc, etc. I've started playing around with it, and even though it's still a little rough, it's also pretty spiffy. Here's how to get started:
1. You need Bluetooth. If your compy has it, great. If not, buy a USB adapter. I got the Kensington 33348 for $30 at Best Buy, but here's the complete list of compatible devices. Install the drivers from the included CD.
2. Download GlovePIE. This program runs all the Wiimote scripts. It comes with quite a few prewritten scripts, and new ones are fairly easy to write (I'm still learning).
3. Get your Wiimote connected. This can be tricky. You have to hit buttons 1 and 2, just like you do to connect to the Wii, but the controller only stays in "search mode" for a few seconds, so you'll have to keep hitting them until your Bluetooth program finds it (it's called Nintendo RVL-CNT). Connect to it as a human input device (HID).
4. Run GlovePIE. File-->open-->testWiimote.pie. Once the script is loaded, hit "Run." If the numbers in the white box change when you move the Wiimote, it's working fine. Now click File-->open-->Wiimote Scripts and find a script that interests you.
So far, I've played with WiiDrums and Wiiitar, which are both pretty fun, and I now regularly use the Windows Media Player script so's I can have a remote control for my media (Note: the volume controls in that script are messed up. Change "Wiimote.Left" to F8 and "Wiimote.Right" to F9. You'll get what I mean once you see it.) If you want to run any scripts that use the IR features (like the pointer/FPS scripts) you'll need an IR source. Until I can work up something with IR LEDs, I've been using a candle, which isn't perfect, but works ok.
If you mess around with this, let me know how it goes for you, and if I come up with any fun scripts, I'll post 'em here. Happy Wiiputing!
