Using your Wiimote with powerpoint

October 6th, 2007 — Gadgets

With a number of presentations coming up, I wanted the ability to remotely trigger my presentation slides. A quick search on eBay revealed similar remote devices at varying prices, mostly from overseas. I ordered one, but while waiting for it to show up, hubby suggested that I look into using the Wiimote as “it’s just so much cooler”.

We tried a few things…and found a solution that works.

Here’s what you’ll need to get your Wiimote to work with Powerpoint in Windows Vista:

  • A Wiimote
  • GlovePIE version .22 or higher
  • A Bluetooth enabled PC - the standard Microsoft Windows Bluetooth stack isn’t completely compatible with the Wiimote. I ended up downloading and using BlueSoleil.
  • DirectX 8.0 or higher

Once you install GlovePIE, you’ll need to set up a GLovePIE script to enable the Wiimote to function in Powerpoint. Here’s the script I’m using at the moment (just save it as a .PIE file somewhere easily accessible). As you can see, it’s really basic. I haven’t had time to play around, but there’s a lot more cool stuff you can do!

Mouse.LeftButton = Wiimote.A
Mouse.RightButton = Wiimote.B
PageUp = Wiimote.Minus
PageDown = Wiimote.Plus
up = Wiimote.Up
down = Wiimote.Down
left = Wiimote.Left
right = Wiimote.Right

At present, the Wiimote mimics the page up and page down function and up/down/left/right arrow keys.

If you want more information, check out:

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Wii for the geriatric

February 23rd, 2007 — Gadgets, General

I was reading this article about how the Wii has taken off with the retiree generation (thanks Kaja for the link!). It’s interesting to see how Nintendo has challenged the presumptions about the target user groups and looked at a very non traditional segment of the market.

I love the article for two reasons:

  1. For showing that you can successfully challenge ‘traditional’ ways of doing something.
  2. For bringing a smile to my face.

1 Comment