Hello everyone,

I apologize for having a noobish technical question as a first post, but this looks like a great community and I
look forward to learning from everyone.

I bought a used Nintendo Wii Remote (wiimote) at GameStop and am using a micro bluetooth USB dongle. I am able to get my pc (running Windows XP Pro) to detect and connect to the Wiimote (see pictures below) but attempting to run any application (such as Glovepie) results in either a crash or consistently erroneous input (such as always pulling on one direction). Also, when attempting to run such an application, all four blue LED indicators on the wiimote flash (as they do when connecting).

Following one of the online tutorials here I see that my micro bluetooth USB dongle is using the Microsoft stack. Has anyone had a similar issue, or does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Mr. Clean



P.S.  If it helps any, the bluetooth dongle I'm using is one of these, though mine didn't come with a disk of any sort.  I just plugged it in and Windows recognized it.  I'd never had any bluetooth device installed before this either.

Resolved: I downloaded and installed BlueSoleil 6.0 and am now receiving clean accelerometer data in WiinRemote and valid connection in SmoothBoard.  I have not finished wiring my homebrew sensorbar so I have not tested the IR functionality yet.

The only downside is I am unclear if I will eventually have to pay for BlueSoleil or not.  The website seemed a little contradictory about the 'free' download.

Edit: Nope, it isn't free.  Stops working after a short period of time and says it will only work for a trial period of 15 days.  Cost $28 US to register it, which hurts as I'm trying to research affordable implementations for schools around here.  The micro dongle seemed like a bargain as I only paid between $2 and $3 each, but a license fee of about $30 ontop of that makes it less impressive of a deal.

...I also see in their fine print, now that I've bought it, that my license key is only valid on one pc.  So while I am developing and experimenting on my desktop I would have to buy another license to use it on-site with my laptop.  Not pleased with this.  So far their software is saying it cannot connect to activate using my key anyway, so this is turning out to be an unexpectedly expensive and disappointing approach.  I'll be looking for different USB dongles in the future.

Thank you for the suggestion, Hagoh.  Unfortunately, while wiimoteconnect allowed me to connect the Wii successfully all applications I attempted to run posted no data from the Wiimote or an error that the wiimote was not, in fact, connected.  If there is another way to get this to work with the microsoft stack alone I'd be very, very happy as that would save $30 per unit.

Using BlueSoleil seems to work, I'm just not happy about the cost and the fact that it won't activate even though I've paid for it.  I submitted a help request and am waiting for them to reply.