Wiimote Whiteboard

This is an old project that I no longer maintain or support. It’s listed here for archival purposes only, as it still might be useful to someone. Beware that many of the links below don’t work anymore.

I stopped working on this project around 2013 due to increasing Bluetooth connectivity problems (especially on macOS, but also due to third-party Wii remotes) that I couldn’t do much about. Overall, Wiimote Whiteboard had a good run with more than 300000 downloads by the end of 2015.

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 :).

WiimoteWhiteboard Icon — Icon by Francisco Cardoso Lima

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) #

Cross-platform Java version
Mac application (Mac OS 10.8 or later)
Mac application (legacy) (Mac OS 10.7 or earlier)
Source Code

Video #

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.

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.