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USB/BT Joystick Center now does Wii motion controls

Our favorite app for game controller compatibility on Android, USB/BT Joystick Center, now has yet another new feature to make it great: true Wii motion control support. Unlike simply using the controllers for button input, this actually allows you to wave your Wii remote around and have something happen on your Android tablet.

The way the Wii remote works to begin with is that it uses a fixed IR emitter as a point of reference, and then calculates its own position based on how it has moved in relation to the IR emitter. With this new update, USB/BT Joystick Center is able to take that data and translate it into touch input. That way, moving the Wii controller is like moving a “touch cursor” on the screen, while a button activates the actual touch. I set it up in mere minutes and was playing Angry Birds using a Wii controller in no time – as you can see it the video above. The video is unfortunately a bit shaky, as a result of me having to stand back a bit for the Wii controller to work, but you get the drift.

If you want to try this yourself, you need the USB/BT Joystick Center main app, the Joystick2Touch add-on, a rooted Android tablet, a Wii remote, and an IR emitter. You set up the IR emitter, put the Wii mote in pairing mode (using the button under the battery lid, or just A+B), start USB/BT Joystick Center, activate Bluetooth, give it access, let it find the remote, map the three Wii IR related buttons (I mapped the “activate touch” button to A), start Joystick2touch, and then open that app to test it out in its test screen. Exit USB/BT Joystick Center by clicking “back” until it closes first, and then the Wii pointer should pop up in the test area when you click the button you mapped to Wii IR on/off. Make sure you have it working, then back out of that app too, and head into whatever game you want. Angry Birds is an excellent first try for this setup as it works out of the box. In theory though, you could set this up to do all sorts of things.

[Google Play]

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Andreas Ødegård

Andreas Ødegård is more interested in aftermarket (and user created) software and hardware than chasing the latest gadgets. His day job as a teacher keeps him interested in education tech and takes up most of his time.

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