So you plug in your wii, you set everything up, you play your favorite games. But do you ever give a second thought to how the sensor bar works? Probably not, unless you experience problems with it. I will do my best in this article to explain its working theory.
So it’s called a sensor bar, right? So what do I tell you? Not a sensor bar at all? Most people assume that a signal is somehow sent from the wiimote and is picked up by the sensor bar. This is the opposite of what actually happens.
Theory of operation:
The wii sensor bar is just two constant sources of infrared light. The WiiMote sees these two points of light and measures their position as you move the WiiMote and these points of light change. Imagine this, if you have two reference points you know where you are all the time. If you roll left and right, the points roll. As you move up and down or left and right, the references move in the opposite direction. If you get closer, the landmarks get further away. Move further away and the dots will get closer. If you are having trouble displaying this, please go to Wii Settings and Sensor Settings. Move the WiiMote around and see if you can control what I explained above.
Troubleshooting:
So you’re playing on your Nintendo Wii and the cursor always jumps erratically, what do you do? Well, first of all, since the WiiMote is looking for infrared light to use as a reference, make sure that the only infrared light it sees is from the sensor bar. Since infrared light is heat, get rid of all points of light and heat behind the Wii Sensor Bar. Since this light and heat is reflected, look for things that can also be reflected behind the Sensor Bar.
cool tricks:
Since your WiiMote “sees” infrared light, you can use it to see infrared signals! Go into your sensor settings again, point your TV remote at the WiiMote and change the channel, you should see your screen displaying the infrared signals.
Move your Sensor Bar where it can’t be seen, grab two candles, place them 8 inches apart in front of your TV, now use them to play games with your Wii!