Wii sensor bar is not so Wii, it's huge

[Steven W]

Check out this new pic of the Wii sensor bar, it sits in front of your T.V and picks up the signals from the Wii remote.

Check out the Headline for more info.

[Lee H]

In all honesty I would not notice that on top of a big screen like a 32" LCD/Plasma as I'd be concentrating on my funky moves with the wiimote or whatever they want to call the control system.

[Stoo]

As long as it's got some nice rubbery pads on it so the weight of that long lead doesn't cause it to skew off the top of the tv/table it should be okay

Did we not have anything handy to act as a size comparison? (although if that plug is about the same size as a firewire plug, it might suffice..)

[Steven W]

As long as it's got some nice rubbery pads on it so the weight of that long lead doesn't cause it to skew off the top of the tv/table it should be okay

Did we not have anything handy to act as a size comparison? (although if that plug is about the same size as a firewire plug, it might suffice..)

Nick's added his opinion as he's actually saw it. Click on link again.

[kalniel]

How would that sense hieght? I can imagine it copes fine with horizontal axis, and depth, but don't know how a flat sensor can do angle. Maybe there's another sensor on the box itself to help triangulate?

[Stoo]

Nick's added his opinion as he's actually saw it. Click on link again.

*nods*

Yep, that's actually not too bad at all, if it's 30cm wide, then it would make it about 2cm thick and about 3ish deep..

As long as it's not too light and plasticky it should be fine with just about any modern tv

[Stoo]

How would that sense hieght? I can imagine it copes fine with horizontal axis, and depth, but don't know how a flat sensor can do angle. Maybe there's another sensor on the box itself to help triangulate?

I'd imagine that horizontal, vertical and depth are handled by the bar triangulating the controller's postion, with tilt and rotation being taken care of inside the controller itself

[Steven W]

Hmm 30cm - perhaps it's not so huge after all! It looked huge in the pics!

[kalniel]

I'd imagine that horizontal, vertical and depth are handled by the bar triangulating the controller's postion, with tilt and rotation being taken care of inside the controller itself

But I don't understand

Even if you've got sensors at the extreme ends of the bar, they must just be measuring distance. If you move the controller in an arc from one height to another (say from -30 to +30 degrees from the bar's horizon) the distance to the sensors always stays the same.

Maybe there's an accelerometer as well.. but if so why need the bar in the first place?

[awm]

[speculation]
It may use a system like the GPS where time signals are broadcast by both sides then the reciever computes the position. With the (presumably) 2 sensors you find the intersection of 2 spheres which is a circle that goes around the the perpendicular the the screen. Thus it could figure our where you were assuming a height and that you are in front of the TV
[/speculation]

However it works it seems like it should be fun to play around. Hopefully reviews will eventrually fill in interested nerds like me.

[kempez]

It looks damn nice to me - worth it for the Wii's pure playability

[Stoo]

But I don't understand

Even if you've got sensors at the extreme ends of the bar, they must just be measuring distance. If you move the controller in an arc from one height to another (say from -30 to +30 degrees from the bar's horizon) the distance to the sensors always stays the same.

Maybe there's an accelerometer as well.. but if so why need the bar in the first place?

Who said that there are only two units in the bar? It's probably a grid type affair, capable of triangulating from many points simultaneously..

[kalniel]

Yes but if all the points are at the same height you still have the problem. And it looks like a flat bar to me

I mean, it's obvious they *do* have a solution, but I'm just intrigued

[herulach]

surely if the wiimote works wired, it cant be relying on this for position sensing anyway? I reckon its an accelerometer type affair tbh

[Mike Fishcake]

It will probably turn out that the Wii "box" that was on display is just an external drive, and the actual console is the size of a small child.

[Kamakazie]

This is what is already known (might help with some of the incorrect speculation in the article):

- The sensor bar IS required for the controller to work. The controller has an infra-red transmitter on it and the bar uses this to triangulate the positon of the remote in 3d space.
- The remote itself will use bluetooth to transmit info to the console.
- The remote also has solid state 6-axis gyros and accelerometers in it to deal with all the tilting and actions.

As far as im aware, the booths at E3 DID have the sensor bars, they were setup below the TV though and it caused a few problems with tall people.
The booths at E3 also used dev kits (basically Camecubes), not actual Wii hardware as ATi hasn't finished the GPU for the Wii. This is probably why the remotes were wired.

hope this helps