WEBVTT - How the Wii Remote Works 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:09.000 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technologies with 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:17.919 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.479 Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette and 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:22.920 I am an editor here at how stuff works dot Com. 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:25.200 Sitting across from me, as he always does, is senior 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:28.120 writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey, Chris Polette, why do you always 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:32.479 introduce me? Second? Because otherwise I'd be going hi? And 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:38.000 Jonathan Strickland's here and Chris Polette, Yes, we we had 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:41.120 a listener asked why I was always listed Second. It 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:44.320 just because we kind of settled on this routine. And uh, 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:46.519 once you get a routine, it makes you feel nice 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:49.800 and comfortable, you don't really want to leave that. And 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.000 so when I tried just a minute ago, I got 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.760 lots and lots of giggles. Yeah, yeah, because it just 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:59.720 didn't work. Um, rest assured, faithful listeners, I am not 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.640 offended or hurt in any way that I am listed. Second. Uh, 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.000 the fact that I pretty much chatter all over Chris 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:10.200 whenever he tries to say anything. Uh, I think he 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.880 needs I think he needs top billing all right, So 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:18.000 let's let's get into the topic. Yes we should, Yes 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:20.520 we will. What we're gonna talk about today comes to 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:27.119 us courtesy of a little listener mail. This listener mail 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:31.080 comes from Jackie, and Jackie had a nice mail message 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:33.039 was fairly long, so I'm just gonna cut it to 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:35.400 the chase here and says I had a topic that 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.680 was wondering about how does the WE remote actually work. 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:40.440 I know it has something to do with the sensor, 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.000 but that's it. Looking ahead the future podcast, I can't 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:45.240 see any that appeared to cover this topic and think 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:48.200 that it would make an interesting podcast. Jackie, we agree. 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:50.480 So we're going to talk about how the WE remote works. 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:52.639 And we've talked a little bit about the Wei remote 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.000 in the past when we were chatting about the you know, 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:59.480 the different video game interfaces, but we really wanted to 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.640 dig in and talk about what it is that makes 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:06.840 the WE remote tick, how how it works, and UM 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:09.239 kind of some of the neat things that people are 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:14.960 doing with the Wei remote that perhaps Nintendo didn't really intend. Yeah, 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:18.840 that's uh, it's funny because the pieces that make up 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:20.880 the WE remote. UM. Actually one of the things that 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.840 people talked about a lot when the Nintendo uh we 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:28.240 first hit the shelves was the fact that, um, you know, 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:31.440 people who who were detracting from the machine said, well, 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.799 you know, they didn't use any of the high tech, custom, 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:38.320 cutting edge components that some of the other manufacturers use. 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.000 But that sort of works in uh well, it works 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:44.520 in Nintendo's favor in one regard because it keeps the 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:48.120 cost of the console down here. But um, as it 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:51.880 turns out, these components are also prized by hackers. People 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:54.760 like to take stuff apart and do other things with it. 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:59.320 I've seen many projects, uh cataloged in the pages of 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.200 Make MAGAZINEEN and YouTube and some of the other places 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:04.480 where people have messed around with it. Um. And it's 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.560 really the WE remote is a hodgepodge of different parts 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:12.200 um that basically take your movements and interpret them in 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.760 a way that the console can understand and allow you 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.079 to play the games. Right. So let's kind of talk 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.359 about the different parts that are inside your WE remote, 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:23.080 assuming you have one. Okay, all right, So if you 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:26.600 were to take your WE remote apart, here's where we say, 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:31.200 do not take your WE remote apart. People have done 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:33.760 this for you. You don't need to do it yourself, 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:36.360 and if you do do it, chances are you won't 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.480 get it back together again. But if you were to 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.280 take it apart first, you would notice that it's held 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:47.160 together by some pretty wacky screws. The screws are proprietary, 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:50.960 it's a Nintendo design, um, and it's designed in such 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:52.920 a way. It's kind of this weird sort of triangular, 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.280 three pronged thing. Uh. It's designed in such a way 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:59.160 so that it is not easy to remove those screws, 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:01.640 although you can find and screwdrivers out there, especially for 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:05.320 Nintendo repair kits that that do have the right um, 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:07.920 the right head on the screwdriver so that you can 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.840 remove them. Uh. It's held together by about four screws 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:12.880 and a couple of clips. And once you get that apart, 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:16.000 that's it. That's the only thing holding this this bob together. 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:18.359 And we're talking about the main we remote here, not 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:20.960 the nunchuck or anything like that, right, not the motion 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:24.599 plus right, not the motion plus either. Right. So once 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:26.720 you get that apart, you would be essentially looking at 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.919 a plastic casing, two halves of a plastic casing, and 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:33.599 a circuit board with lots of a little you know, 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.840 microprocessors attached to it. You'd see a speaker there, you'd 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.960 see some buttons. Um. You would also see a little 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.279 motor that would be attached to one to the upper 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:47.160 side of the we remote that motor. I'll just get 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:48.960 that out of the way first. That's pretty simple. That's 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:52.720 the motor that creates the rumble feel that you get 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:56.040 whenever you have one of those, uh, the force feedback moments. Yeah, 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:57.839 similar to the kind that you'd find in a cell 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:00.640 phone that you used for the vibrant mode. Yeah, it's 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:04.000 essentially a little off center rotating cylinder in there that 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:07.560 rotates and that's what causes the rumble motion. And it 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.200 pretty much just has an on and an off mode. 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.840 That's about it. Though. You can make it feel like 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:18.120 more of a of a vibration sensation if you turn 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.280 it on and off at a at certain frequencies. That 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:23.640 can actually make it feel like it's a more intense 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.440 or less intense rumbling. But like we said, it's it's 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.320 it's a bit. It's a binary function. It's either a 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:34.400 zero or a one on or off. Um. Actually, uh, 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:36.919 Jonathan and I were when we were doing research for this, 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:39.000 we found a great article in the I e e 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:43.640 ES Pervasive Technology magazine from Johnny Chung Lee. Uh, I 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.039 can highly recommend it if you're really interested in hacking this. 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:47.840 But this is where we found a lot of our information. 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:50.480 And he gets into lots and lots of detail. Uh. 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.880 He was a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University and 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:58.039 is now part of Microsoft's team. I believe he has 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:01.760 a pretty cool blog out there too. Um. But yeah, 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.040 so there we we got some really really good details 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:09.080 on this. And should we get into the individual components. 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:11.760 I want to talk about those. Um, you know, the 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.000 first thing, uh, you know a lot of people think 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:19.200 about is that three axis accelerometer that's inside the machine 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.400 and analog devices. Is the company that created that yep, yep. 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:26.640 And uh, basically you'd find these in other all kinds 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.600 of other technologies to they're they're pretty common these days. 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:35.440 Cell phone and you know the iPod and iPhone and iPad. 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:37.680 These are the sort of these are the sort of 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.400 sensors that allow the devices to know which way they 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:43.800 are oriented. So like for instance, an iPhone or an 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.200 iPod touch it would tell that it's whether it's in 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:52.320 landscape or or portrait mode. So the screen would flip accordingly, 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.039 same sort of thing, except in this case this the 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:59.640 accelerometer is helping the um the we uh figure out 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.360 what the orientation is of the WE remote itself, so 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.240 the pitch, the yaw, the role um as you move 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:09.440 it around. This is y'all, it's yeah, it's one of 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.040 the This is one of the ways that the WE 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:16.640 detect how you're holding the remote and thus can interpret 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.160 your actions within a game or you know, a menu 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.320 system or whatever. It's just one of the ways, but 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.120 it's it's the one that that got a lot of 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.120 press early on. And uh, I read one review where 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:29.880 it was kind of interesting where they're talking about taking 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.440 a part that WE remote and finding just a tiny 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.520 bit of disappointment that there weren't actual tiny little gyroscopes 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:40.080 in there to indicate the because the gyroscope is a 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.760 you know, it's a good old way of figuring out 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:48.800 the um the orientation of a of any sort of surface, right, 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.360 I mean, that's kind of what we what NASA uses 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:54.280 in a lot of it's the early spacecraft where gyroscopes 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.840 too to be able to make adjustments to the pitch 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.640 and y'all. But no, no, this is just a little 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.160 like tonic chip that essentially does the same thing it uses. 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:08.360 You know, it detects different changes in fields. So um, 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.440 but it's there is no actual little moving gyroscope inside 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:15.520 your Wii remote. No gyroscopes, no jack's, no tinker toys, 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:20.600 you know. Um, sorry I got out track there. But 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:23.840 there is an I R camera, an infrared camera manufactured 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:28.320 by Pixart Imaging. Um that's got a multi object tracking 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:30.800 engine in it. It can even it can keep track 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:34.240 of four simultaneous infrared light sources. You know. This is 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:37.240 what allows you to do lots of really cool hacking tricks, 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:40.520 which will give into a little bit later. But if 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.840 you're like me, you might be a little surprised. I 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:46.360 was thinking that would be an I R sensor right, 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.120 not not not a or not not a sense I'm sorry, 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:51.880 and I are emitter, and that the sensor itself would 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:53.720 be on your television. You know that you have a 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:56.319 sensor bar that you put above the TV. Because it 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.640 turns out it doesn't really sense, no, it it's emitting. Yes, Um, 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:04.440 so it turns out that the uh that it's swapped around, right, 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.400 I thought, because when you think of like a remote control. 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.400 When you press a button, you think, oh, I'm sending 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:13.360 a signal to the television or to the you know whatever, 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.240 the cable box, and that the cable box is a receiver, 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.760 and so that's how that's working. No, it's the other 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.880 way around with the WE remote. The the remote itself 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:27.760 is the sensor, and the sensor bar is actually the transceiver. 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:33.000 It's transmitter, actually not transceiver, but a transmitter UM. So 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.439 you've got at the end of your Wi remote this 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:42.200 sensor that detects uh infrared UM signals. And that's again 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.680 we'll get into it, but that's kind of the secret 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:49.720 behind we hacks and why the Wei remote has become very, uh, 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:54.680 a very useful tool for hackers. Uh. Let's see what else. 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.160 What else? It's got four little blue LEDs in there 0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:59.640 tell you whether you're player one, two, three, or four. 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.160 The buttons, of course, are on little sensors. So every 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:05.640 time we press a button, that activates the sensor and 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:08.240 and the uh. When you get down to the point 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:10.640 of taking a Wei remote apart um, there are a 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:14.040 lot of buttons there. It's twelve buttons total, and four 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.360 of those would be the direction pad. A lot of 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.040 people just think of the direction pad as a single unit. 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:24.760 But yeah, technically it's four buttons. Um and uh, well, 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.199 it's got an expansion poured, it's got it's got the 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:33.880 port for the nunchuck or we motion. Plus it's a 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:39.959 proprietary six pin plug that's Nintendo's own memory. Yes, it 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:44.240 does have memory. It's got five point five kilobytes of 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.800 on board flash memory, which is good for storing your 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.320 ME if you're going to take your ME with you 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.240 as you go to a friend's house to play. Um, 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.080 just a little bit of information there. It doesn't it 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:58.760 doesn't store lots and lots of data, all right. There's 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.680 the speaker you mentioned that earlier. Yes, so that you 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:03.880 actually can get sound out of the Wei remote. So 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:05.880 if you're playing something like a Star Wars game and 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.679 you fire up that lightsaber, you get the nice little 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:13.480 wall wow noises coming straight from your controller and not 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:17.000 from necessarily just the TV. UM and uh. It has 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:21.040 a Bluetooth chip. Yes, it does. Is another reason why 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.560 hackers like it so much, because it makes it easy 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:28.440 to connect to various PC programs that have a Bluetooth 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:32.200 enabled UM uh component. Yeah, it's a it's the Broadcom 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:37.319 two chip UM. It's uh, it's not a dent human 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:41.520 interface design compliant, which means you might if you are 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:45.600 going to try hacking the Wei remote yourself, UM, you're 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.840 gonna have you might have some difficulty connecting it to 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:52.920 a computer. Although according to what Lee said, it's probably 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:56.080 the hardest part of actually uh doing a lot of 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.440 work with it is getting it to connect with a 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:00.760 particular computer. So what it depends on the computer, I think, 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:04.080 and whether or not you can you can detect it 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.560 easily or not. But but yeah, it does. That does 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.920 help out in the hacking department. I forgot about one 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.400 other component that you would notice if you were looking 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:18.559 at the circuit board, a capacitor. I am, there's actually 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.640 quite large capacitor on the end opposite of the UH 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:27.600 the I R sensor UM. The capacitor is is probably 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:31.200 probably provides some power to things like the accessories that 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:33.720 you can plug into the base of the Wii remote 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.680 for example, Again the nun chuck um, which on its 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:41.800 own does not have any battery power. It's it draws 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.319 all its power from or doesn't have battery power. And 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:46.120 note I can't remember it's been so long since I've 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.960 used my Wii. Um, what the way were on the 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.320 nun chuck. The nunchuck doesn't have a battery on board. 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:54.480 I didn't think it did. But as soon as I said, 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:56.320 I was like, whoa wait, if I'm wrong about that, 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.760 people are going to write in the will it's been 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:01.920 so this shows how long it's been since I've used 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.440 my Wii remote. Well, I do have in my notes 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:06.720 the connector is a proprietary Oh I said that, but 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.240 it does provide three point three volts of power and 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:13.800 four hurts of twelve C serial communication. Okay, so that's 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.840 where the nunchuck is drawing its energy from. The battery 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.120 provides the power to the capacitory. Topacitory can provide power 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:23.000 to the nunchuck. Um. Also, I mean the dun check 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.800 is gonna draw power from the we remote batteries as well. Yeah. 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.400 And if you are using batteries, um, instead of a 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.760 rechargeable battery of some type, um, you know, like they 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:37.040 have the third party and uh um the battery packs 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:40.840 that you can actually plug in battery or charging stations. Um. 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:42.880 But if you were using just a standard pair of 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.360 double A batteries, you're gonna get about twenty to forty 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:49.760 hours of battery life. Yeah, that's not that's not terrible. 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:52.800 Now when you think about it, I mean considering you know, 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:55.880 the sort of functions that you're using this this WE 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.920 remote for now, if you're using the Wii remote for 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.280 something static, you're using the Wii remote as a detector 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:06.280 um the way a lot of hacking projects use it. Uh, 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:08.720 it probably will last longer than if you were to, 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:13.800 you know, use it as a full um video game controller, 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.720 because then you're activating the accelerometer, the rumble pack, all 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:18.839 that kind of stuff, and that's going to drain more 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.040 power than if it's just being used as a sensor. 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:26.920 Now where should we go from here? Well, if you 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:29.120 think now, that's I mean, that is exactly how it works. 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.000 You're talking about again, the sensor bar has the LED 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:35.600 lights inside it, so it's the transmitter, not really a sensor. Oh. 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:37.480 We we should point out the function of the censor 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.120 bar because somebody might say, hey, you know it's got 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:42.640 all that stuff inside the controller, why do you need 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:46.760 the sensor bar. The censor bar helps orient the WE 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.680 remote and the WE so the WE knows pretty much 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:54.080 where the player is. Um. You know, if you start 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.720 anybody who has a WE and especially in someone who 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.520 has a someone like me as a pretty small living room, 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:02.840 if you you'll find that you step if you step 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.720 close to the TV suddenly or we may go wait 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.200 a minute, I don't wear Hey, where did you go? Well, 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:13.080 it's the the center bar and the camera on the 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:17.160 WE remote are basically telling the WE roughly where you are, 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:22.160 and if you make a sudden shift forward or backward suddenly, 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.080 that we might take a minute to reorient you. And 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:27.680 that's that's what that lag time is, is the censor 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:31.920 bar and I our camera basically figuring out what happened, 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:34.440 and the WE motion plus takes care of a lot 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:36.600 of that. That does help. That helped quite a bit 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.600 so that it could give more accuracy as far as 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:44.040 depth goes. And uh so, yeah, the censor bar is 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:48.640 actually got lights inside it ELI d Infra red lights, 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:50.880 so not we're not talking visible lights, it's outside the 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:56.640 visible spectrum, but they're constantly sending light out and the 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:58.960 censor at the end of the WE remote picks up 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.880 that light and that's what and through the Bluetooth chip 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:05.920 can transmit to the wii UM the orientation of the 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:10.040 remote based upon things like the accelerometer and how much 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.080 of the light it's sensing from the sensor bar. Now, 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:18.760 if you were to decide to hack this, you're looking 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.520 mostly at the Wei remote as your your device. You know, 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:25.280 you don't even need the we anymore if you want to. 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:27.240 If you're if you're talking about a hack job where 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.080 you want to use the the WE remote as a sensor, 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.920 what you would need is some sort of of either 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.520 reflective tape or an l e D i R light 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.840 infra red light, so an infrared l e ED. We're 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.240 not talking about your average l d's that light up 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:45.280 red or green or blue or whatever. It would be 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.440 lighting up in the infrared spectrum. Now, I've seen some 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.560 really cool applications for this. The one in the article 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:56.480 was actually pretty neat. Where was talking about using uh, 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.720 the l and an l e D marker. So you're 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:01.920 it'll looks like a marker, like you know, like a 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.840 like a sharpie, Yes, but it has an l e 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:08.240 ED infrared light at the end of it. And then 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:12.719 you could project on a screen a um projected a 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.159 white board and you could write on the white board 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.760 with the l e ED light. Very cool. That's pretty nifty. 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:22.639 But the one that I really like was an a 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:30.440 Wee Ferreman. Yeah. Interesting, it was a fairman where the Fairman, 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.359 if you aren't familiar, is h this wacky musical instrument 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:39.919 that um you usually play by having a you have 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:43.000 a pair of sensors really um and as you get 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:45.560 closer and further away from him, you can adjust the 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:49.960 pitch and volume of a sound. And it's that weird 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.760 like wah wah, I'm noisy here in the old like 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.160 nineteen fifties b science fiction movies and almost in in 0:17:57.280 --> 0:17:59.160 some ways it reminds me of a saw people playing 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:01.879 a saw, right, but you can identify the I mean 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:06.120 it sounds electric. Yeah, there is a difference in the 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:08.200 the eerieness of it sort of reminds me of saw 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.200 what it's like, and our keen eared listeners will pick 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:13.480 up on the Stephen King reference I just threw in there, 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:19.159 but yeah, it's the idea of the traditional thereman is 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.640 by moving your hands further closer, further away, or up 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:27.000 and down these various u UM bars, you can make 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:31.120 uh this weird sound. Well, it's kind of a similar 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:35.480 idea with the the the Nintendo we hack, the we 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.560 remote acts as the sensor and you use a pair 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:43.040 of gloves. Where the guy who did this hack, he 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:44.680 used a pair of gloves and he put an L 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:48.040 E D light at the tip of the forefinger of 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.400 each of the gloves, all right, and then by orienting 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:55.600 his hands, he could move one L E D up 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.280 and that would be the the I think it was 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.840 the volume, and he could move the other led closer 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:04.760 or further away from the center that WE remote, and 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:08.840 that ended up being the pitch. And so he created 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:13.280 a virtual thereman, which if you've ever looked into the 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.840 plans for building a thereman, these things are fiendishly complicated. 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:20.160 They're not easy to build. Um. I actually know a guy. 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:22.119 I know a guy who did build one, and it 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.320 took him quite a while to do it because it's 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:28.080 just it's it's a pretty complicated build. Um. But by 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.840 using some software the that I think the guy actually 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:34.919 wrote the software who created the hack, And this I 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:36.720 saw on YouTube. I just did a YouTube where I 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:39.240 did a I think I was searching Theraman's at the 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.760 time and I saw this cool WE remote hack. But 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:45.480 using the WE remote as the sensor, it's the one 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:49.000 that's picking up where the led lights are coming from 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:53.320 UM and then running that through this software, he was 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:59.800 able to create the Freman UM, the virtual Freman. Yeah. 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:02.600 It's matter of fact, I've seen, uh seeing quite a 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:08.200 few we instrument type hacks. UM. The guy who had 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:13.879 created this entire percussion uh ensemble where different kinds of 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:16.240 instruments where he had it was really involved lots and 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:21.640 lots of servos uh and other little robotic things used 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.120 to strike the drums, you know. And UM he had 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:26.920 it set up where he could use the Wii remote 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:29.800 to control what would be played at what time, and 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:32.520 it was very very fascinating us. Uh quite a few 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:37.199 videos on YouTube like that. UM. And uh, you know, 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.280 I'm curious, why would somebody bother if you, if you 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.080 these parts are basically off the shelf parts, why would 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:46.560 you say that people actually bother taking the time to 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:49.679 hack the Wii remote instead of going to get an 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:54.560 accelerometer and you know the l ed s it's already 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:58.280 made for you. That's a big thing. So it's it's 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:02.280 essentially like uh like going to for example, the maker 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:05.600 shed and getting an argue know board, and you know 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:07.800 it's already You've got the components that you need to 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:09.720 do it, and all you have to do is pull 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:11.159 it apart and do what you're going to do with it. 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:13.800 That's part of it, I think. But I think another part. 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:15.560 I mean, you've already, like I said, You've already got 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:18.720 the components put together. You've got the Bluetooth component, which 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:21.119 is a big part of it. UM, You've got the 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:25.800 the infrared sensor there, and it's already all wired together 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:28.320 in a circuit board UM. And it's in a very 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.800 compact format, and it's cheap. You know, it's already put 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:35.200 together in a in a relatively cheap way. We've talked 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:38.359 a little bit about some industries, like say, the virtual 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:41.840 reality industry, although it's most people tend to call it 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:45.679 virtual environments now or they call it something totally different. Well, 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.679 it's hard to get funding for virtual reality and virtual 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:57.040 environment projects. It's the the public, uh, perception of virtual 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:02.320 reality was not accurate back when the term really took 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:05.359 off in the nineties, right because we all heard about 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:07.639 virtual reality, and we all heard that we were going 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:10.800 to be living in this virtual space. And once people 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:14.560 found out what what, how far along virtual reality actually was, 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:17.800 the bottom dropped out of it because it did not 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.359 live up to what our expectations were because a few 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:24.560 people kind of overhyped it, and as a result, those 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:28.320 projects lost a lot of support and it became more 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:30.760