Alright, so I've spent the past couple hours trying to figure out how to do this. I've read about successes and failures, so I wanted to just make a thread and get some help, so here's the question:

Is is possible to use a wiimote to detect reflected IR light from an IR laser in a normally-lit room ***WITHOUT*** modifying any wiimote components (ie: taking out filter)?

If so, what is a good laser power to use, what wavelength should be used, and what should the spot size be?

Thanks!!!

Thanks for taking the time to help me out

There really is no purpose, I just got bored and wanted to make something cool and useful.  I wanted to have this device be as applicable as possible, so that means it should be safe to use on any surface at any reasonable distance away from the wiimote, probably no more than 30 in all likelihood though.  I understand it probably isn't possible to have all my criteria met, so important things it should be able to do (while still trying to stick to being as applicable as possible) are: ability to use on monitors (mainly LCD) and tv's, walls, basically any large common surface, etc...  If necessary, I can modify my wiimote I guess, but I'd like to not alter it very much since I still use it with my wii.  Can this be done?

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to add units to that number, it should be "30 feet"

I work in an optics lab so I know all about laser safety lol.

Sorry, I don't think I said the distance you were thinking of in my earlier post, this should clear it up.  The 30 feet was the absolute maximum distance that the IR source would be from the reflectance surface, which shouldn't matter since the beam will be collimated before being reflected.  The wiimote would be no more than 10 feet away at the VERY most (usually about 2-3 feet away and shining on an LCD monitor) from the reflectance surface.  I was looking at some lasers online, but since they're slightly on the pricey side and I'm a poor college kid, I'd like to spend ~100 bucks on an IR laser only once lol, what are the specs of the laser you think I should get?

Psy