DarwiinRemote

DarwiinRemote its an app and an API for using the Wii’s remote on your mac.

The wiimote uses bluetooth, so you don’t need to do any physical hacking or wiring to connect it to the mac, the software just finds it when you hold down the “find me!” type button thing behind the battery cover.

The app shows the motion sensor information in a line graph, looks a bit like a lie detector.  It’s interesting to see just how sensitive the wiimote is, and how quick it is at interperating the movement.
What’s blown me away however is that you can use the wiimote as a pointing device, you can actually sit across the room and use your mac by pointing at the screen!  Well, it would be really useful but it’s not very easy to click on things, more often than not i’ll move the pointer just enough whilst clicking on an icon for the click to be interpreted as a drag rather than a select.
What’s interesting is that the IR sensor bar doesn’t need to be connected to the mac any way at all.  All you need to do is turn the Wii on so that the sensor bar is powered.  Which must mean that the pointing aspect of the wiimote works in an opposite manor to the way I had presumed.  The IR bar must be the transmitter and the wiimote’s IR be the receiver.  Surely that means “sensor bar” is a bit of a misnomer.  Crazy.