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How the Wiimote Works
The New York Times' 'How it Works' series touches on a remote with a twist: the Nintendo Wiimote. The article describes the micron-sized machines that make it work, displays cut-away graphics of the little white marvel, and rounds out the discussion with a breakdown of where the tech came from. From the article: "The controller's most-talked-about feature is the capacity to track its own relative motion. This enables players to do things like steer a car by twisting the remote in the air or moving a game character by tilting the remote down or up. 'This represents a fabulous example of the consumerization of MEMS,' the tiny devices known as micro-electro-mechanical systems, said Benedetto Vigna, general manager of the MEMS unit at STMicroelectronics, a leading maker of the accelerometers embedded in the controllers. (Nintendo itself declined to talk about the controllers' inner workings.) He said the motion sensors, using the technology that activates vehicle air bags, can accurately sense three axes of acceleration: up and down, left to right, and forward and backward."
This just in.
Nintendo is using their wiimote technology to determine when the wiimote flies from the users hand, and will now deploy an airbag before striking your HDTV.
Please return your wiimote for the new version with the wiirbag.
The sixaxis must be twice as good! Either that or Sony failed geometry...
I thought the Wiimote worked like this:
If you see a monster, throw the Wiimote directly at the monster. Depending on your aim, the monster will die in a shower of bright sparks and crackly noises, or the monster will hurl various objects back at you such as books, chunks of plaster, ceiling fan blades, or your little brother's eyeball.
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If your wiimote is a little off make sure you check the sensitivity to calibrate it.
I found that made a huge difference.
First, the Wiimote isn't an absolute pointing device. It's all relative to the Wiimote bar you place near your TV. Everything is relative to that device, so you are never actually pointing accurately at anything on your screen.
I don't think it ever was lauded or presented as an absolute pointing device prior to its release, but it is a very good ubiquitous pointing device and not simply a one trick pony as something like the Zapper was. As stated by others before me, this is because the sensor bar emits the IR which the wii-mote triangulates its pointing position from. It definately works best on the top of the TV, IMO. Ideal setup can vary depending upon whether you are typically sitting or standing, how high your TV is relative to the ground/seat, etc. Calibrating it is important too -- in my mind, that's one of the things that killed Red Steel - you can only calibrate at the very begining of the first level and not from the pause menu while pointing is an essential part of the controls. In Zelda:TP, you can play entirely without using the pointer and it still has a more advanced calibration option than the beginning of Red Steel available at all times (if only you could turn down the tingling fairy sound).
It would not be possible to have an absolute pointer that would work on all TVs; they would have to actually sell a Wii TV (a Wii-V?) with the IR beams behind the screen to make an absolute pointer. The reason the Zapper and other light guns worked as something like an absolute pointer is because the tech was different, and as I understand it will not work on some modern TVs (I can't recall if its LCD or Plasma). When you pulled the trigger on the Zapper, the screen flashed black for a frame, and the area around the target sprites flashed white after that to indicate a target. The photo-receptors in the Zapper would detect that different to determine a hit or miss. Would you really want the screen flashing right with every shot in any modern FPS? The problem with using something like an invisible later pointer is that TV screens are not flat, and are usually convex. To do a reflective pointer you would ideally want a concave screen with the player at the focal point. By using IR and having each Wii-mote figure out its own position, you don't have to worry about different controllers interfering with each other's signals, etc.
Second, the Wiimote has accuracy/responsiveness issues. Not sure if it is interference from bright lights or some other type of wireless/electronic devices. There are times where you are having to repeat the same motions over again because the Wiimote isn't registering.
If you're having accuracy/responsiveness issues with the pointer, your most likely culprits are 1) other bright lights (including sunlight) in your gaming area 2) Other heat sources that aren't lights in the gaming area (i.e. laptop with running harddrive on the coffee table) 3) possibly reflective surfaces, but doubtful. If you aim your Wii-mote away from the screen and happen to pass another heat source like a candle or laptop, it may temporarily focus on that for triangulation, causing all sorts of problems, so keep your gaming area free of IR sources that can distract the remote. Lights should only be a problem if they are also a significant heat source (incandescent bulbs), and darkened rooms are better for gaming anyway.
I haven't had any obvious problems with Wi-Fi, but it and Bluetooth do operate in the same range, as do most cordless phones. If you're having response problems regularly, try changing the set channels on your Wireless router and/or cordless phones.
As for response issues with other motions, I have occasionally noticed some problems (like with batting in Wii baseball), where the bat seems way off, but if you go back to a base position and restart your motions, it usually comes out just fine. One of the tricky parts to motion recognition is determining which motions were deliberate and which are casual motions not meant to take an action. I much more often accidentally do something with a casual motion than have actions go undetected.
Why would you want to have to calibrate it for the TV? The way it is set up right now, it is all relative. It doesn't have to aim exactly where you are pointing, it just has to change its position based on your movements in a consistent manner. The way it is now, i can go from a 23 inch TV to a 9 foot wide projector image with absolutely no calibration. Plug it in and go. That's really special.