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This program allows you to use the Wii Remote (Wiimote) to turn any surface into a Low-Cost Interactive Whiteboard. It is based on Johnny Lee’s original WiimoteWhiteboard program that is written in C# and available for Windows only. My program uses Java to allow for (some) platform-independence. I also provide a Mac-only version since I’m a Mac user and this is, up to my knowledge, currently the only such program for the Mac. For Windows only, Boon Jin has enhanced Johnny’s software and created the shareware program Smoothboard. There is also a SourceForge project that provides other implementations, but it is not getting much attention.
Check out the video and the other cool projects at Johnny Lee’s page if you have no idea what I’m talking about 
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Features in a nutshell
- Open source
- Runs on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
- Simple User Interface available in English, Estonian, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovene, and Spanish
- Camera Monitor and Calibration Details for better Wiimote placement
- Auto-connects up to 2 Wiimotes
- Right-click support, double-click assistance
- Mouse cursor smoothing
- Screen selection
- Touchpad Mode
- Update notification
- TUIO/OSC support for multitouch applications
More details in the Wiki.
Download (1.0.3)
Some example videos
Documentation & Support
You can post your comments, bug reports, feature requests, etc. at the bottom of this page. The latest documentation is available in the Wiki. You can also find out how you can help.
The wiimoteproject.com forums are a great resource for everything Wiimote. You may use this subforum to discuss everything related to my software. The Smoothboard Wiki also contains useful information for setting up your interactive whiteboard.
Infrared pens
You need a source of infrared (IR) light to use the software. Many people build their own IR pens for that purpose, usually by retrofitting some sort of marker. You’ll find all you need to know here. I started with a simple IR pen made from a battery clip.
There are also IR pens for sale if you don’t want to build one yourself. Several vendors sell different models, the IR Pen marketplace is a good place to get an overview.
You can use the coupon code uwe if you buy from IRPensOnline.com. This will give you a discount of $2 and I’ll get $1.
Compatibility
I only heard of few problems on Mac OS X, using the built-in stack. I also got reports from users who got the program running on Windows using either the Widcomm or BlueSoleil stack. It seems like Widcomm works better, see this post about BlueSoleil. You need to use the BlueZ stack on Linux, see the Wiki or this post for further instructions.
Issue on PowerPC Macs (excerpt from the WiiRemoteJ-README):
Note for Mac OS X PowerPC (PPC) users: you will have to delete the Wii Remote from your previous devices list in System Preferences->Bluetooth->Devices after each connection (every time you connect a given Wii Remote). Even then, the outgoing connection will still fail every other time. There is some sort of bug relating to HCI devices and Apple’s library. Luckily, it was fixed for the Intel Macs.
Further details can be found in the Wiki or the help files bundled with the application.
Hi Jorge, I don’t understand. Can you elaborate?
Uwe
I just devised a great LED pen. Look into the Gillette Fusion razors that use a AAA battery. With some minor modding you can have a GREAT pen with switch. Email me and I can show you what I did. We are in Haiti (Tech Director as well) and we are starting with 1 classroom and going from there.
In His Service,
Sean
Hey Sean -
We are always on the lookout for good ir pen plans. At the moment we are using an led flashlight, with the bright white led replaced with an ir led. It’s good, but not perfect yet. Could you post some pictures / plans somewhere?
Many thanks, MattThomas
Well here we go… My mac did a java update and now I’m getting stack errors…. grrr.. Is there a fix yet??
Also the pen was great but now we think the AAA battery isn’t strong enough. I’ll still get some photos and see if anyone can still use the design. Very slick however might not be enough juice…
In His Service,
Sean
Hi Sean,
I haven’t done the Java update yet…
Uwe
I have fully updated Java (at least fully updated through Software Update) and it’s working for me.
The next version of the application will be available in other languages if people are willing to volunteer. There are about 500 words to be translated.
So please contact me if you want to help to translate the program to the language(s) of your choice.
Uwe
Ok to translate your software in french
Please, give me more information about the job to do.
Thanks
Give me the list.
I will try.
The ‘interface’ to do the translation is very nice!
and
My suggestions to translate the program to Portuguese are complete!
but…
I would like a second opinion… In portuguese language we have a lot of words do say almost the same…
Gostava que outra pessoa revisse e, eventualmente, corrigisse as minhas propostas de tradução. Senti alguns problemas com termos técnicos…
Cheers
Francisco
Can you click and drag with this software? I can’t seem to be able to and this will limit the type of interactive activities I can do. Is it a possible inclusion in later versions of the software?
I can attempt to translate it into Spanish.
Hi Francisco,
Thank you!
We now have translations for German, French, Portuguese, and Spanish soon (see Descalzo’s post above).
Take your time, there’s no need to rush
Thanks, I actually developed the translation software myself because none of the existing solutions were really practical for me.
Uwe
Hi Neville,
I’m not sure I understand what you want.
With the default settings, the left mouse button will be pressed as long as your IR pen is activated. Hence, you should be able to drag things around by moving the activated IR pen…
Uwe
I just used the software and had no problems at all while having two screens mirrored. They just showed up as a single screen in the “Calibration” section of the main window.
Do you still have that problem, Beth?
Uwe
I have finished the Spanish translation (almost). Did you really do that interface yourself? I was noticing how easy it was.
There were 2 things I needed help on, and I’ll try to get a second opinion from my brothers or cousin, or some friends.
Also, if there’s anyone else here that speaks Spanish, please check my work!
Hi Descalzo,
Thanks!
Take your time.
I’m glad you like it
I coded the translation software in about 2 days using the CodeIgniter PHP framework and the boilerplate CSS framework. It’s tailored to small translation projects using .properties-files.
Uwe
Hi,
I think this is a great solution for a better interactive board, and I am trying to integrate this into a school setting. I am trying to design a solution so that the system requires very little time to set up each time it is used. Is it possible to change the code to keep the wiimote on after the program is closed? This would make it much easier for me to implement this solution.
Thanks,
Josh
Hi Josh,
No, it’s not possible since my program needs to establish the Wiimote connection itself to get access.
What you want is a sensible thing to do in Windows where the Wiimote connection is managed by the operating system (the program WiimoteConnect just does this).
However, there are other solutions that might work for you:
* Taping the 1 & 2 buttons permanently
* Making your own “connect”-button
Make sure to have a look at this detailed HOWTO for schools.
Uwe
Your program is totally awesome! I just tried it with my Eee PC 1000h with the built in Bluetooth and it just works perfect! This is THE connection for presentations!
In Johnny Lee’s video, he ends with some cool visual programs that follow his cursor around. Anyone know of anything like that for the mac?
Also there is a program called Ultimate Pen that looks promising for writing on top of applications.
Hi Norge,
That’s pretty cool, are you using it on Linux?
Uwe
Hi Jason,
Check out iCursor.
There’s also Desktastic.
Uwe
Very sorrily not! Until now I only was able to get it working with windows.
Thanks Uwe! I have this working pretty well on my MacBook Pro (Leopard + Internal BlueTooth + Oct08 Java Update). Sometimes when I try to sync the Wiimote it craps out with an error message, but a restart of the app makes the next sync successful 90% of the time.
Is it possible to send Whiteboard commands via AppleScript? Somethings might be useful for those working with a “clicker” instead of a full keyboard (I am using the Griffin AirClick to control slides). Sending a command to start a calibration or toggle Move/Move+Click would be nice to add to the clicker command set. I am not sure how this would be implemented in a cross-platform manner.
Anne: Good job on the Papermate IR Pen. I did something very similar with a Papermate W20. I used a 3v lithium battery (carefully soldered the terminals to it) and 20 Ohms (pair of 10 Ohm resistors) to get the current at just under .1 mA with the RadioShack IR LED. Seems to work nicely. I’m glad I looked at your site because I forgot about the webcam’s IR sensitivity. I finally put my iSight to some good use!
This is just so much fun! Now if I could just get Keynote to share the screen with Desktastic. If anyone is trying to make slides they can draw on, my current solution is to use Keynote to export the slides as a PDF, then use Adobe Reader 9 in Full Screen mode to display the slides. Desktastic will share the screen with Adobe. The only problem I have right now is that I have to mirror the display because Desktastic (v3.0 Trial Version) will not work on the secondary (Projector) display. I wish it did becuase it is near perfect for my needs.
Regards,
Ken
Hi,
did you try following these instructions and it didn’t work?
Uwe
Hi KenK,
There should be no need to restart the application. Just try again by pressing the 1 & 2 buttons on your Wiimote.
I researched this a bit and it seems there’s currently no easy way to make my app scriptable.
However, GUI Scripting is a solution that might be good enough for you. Note that you need to activate “Enable access for assistive devices” in the Universal Access System Preference pane.
Example:
tell application "System Events" tell application process "WiimoteWhiteboard" tell window "WiimoteWhiteboard" -- start camera monitor click button "IR Camera Monitor" -- activate mouse control tell checkbox "Enabled" if value is 0 then click end if end tell -- change mouse control click radio button "Move Only" end tell end tell end tellUwe
I’ll give the GUI scripting a shot. It looks like it should work fine. Thanks!
-KenK
Changes
* Fixed TUIO-related bug when not using the primary screen
* Added “Adaptive Smoothing” feature
* Added Localizations (German, French, Portuguese, Spanish)
* Added “Calibration Details” feature (shows tracking utilization), inspired by Boon Jin’s Wiimote Smoothboard
* Screen miniature now shows cursor movement
* Switched to WiiRemoteJ v1.5, no need to choose number of Wiimotes anymore
* Using Bluecove 2.0.3 (no development snapshot anymore)
* Made some cosmetic GUI changes (mainly new control styles for Mac OS X 10.5)
* Restricted mouse cursor to screen bounds
* Show nicer message when connection fails, not the Log Window
* Added several runtime options (see documentation)
* Added ant build script to source code distribution
* Changed bundled help files
Uwe
There is a program ‘Scriboard’ (not updated since 2006, I believe); it is the only ‘write on top of everything’ utility on the Mac that can be on top of Keynote and Powerpoint, as far as I know. Works very well. However, naturally the annotations cannot be saved with the presentation (I used screenshots to document what I had written, but they are not accessible during the presentation, e.g. when you return to the previous slide). I now use Illustrator writing with the brush tool to make live presentations in a very different way, and the wii remote technique looks very promising for that.