When Is A Sensor Bar Not A Sensor Bar?

[wii_man76]

Q: When is a sensor bar not a sensor bar?
A: When it's not a sensor bar after all!

From what I gather (I could be wrong) the sensor bar isn't actually a sensor bar at all! It is a transmitter and the sensor is actually in the Wii Controller.

[Ashy]

Its actually just a set of 10 constantly-on LEDs.

[Carrera_C]

It's an IR trasnmitter. If you take a photo of it at the right angle you can see them in the picture (they show as little white lights)

[JLW&CLHWii]

An heres me thinking it was bluetooth?

[Gaffer]

Bluetooth is the motion sensing information.

The sender bar is used for the wiimote to triangulate where it is in space (by detetecting those lights) and then send that info to the wii via bluetooth. This is how it is used as a pointing device.

In short, games that require only the motion sensor (like wii sports tennis for instance) do not need the sender bar during play.
Whereas the home screen which needs the wiimote to act as a pointer does

[wii_man76]

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is used in the controllers but not for sensing how close/far away your controller is from the TV or for moving the pointer around the screen.

[millski]

To prove how little the sensor bar does try unplugging it and putting 2 candles on top of your telly at either end of the bar would be. They give off infrared light (if you light them) and provide the triangulation points used by the remote...

[rikardo69]

really....

[kungfumaster]

why do my vertical blinds on a sunny day give my wii remote a bad case of parkinsons?

[jord@n]

another thing for u peeps to know about, i have one of the reciver and senders thingys for sky so i cn turn it over in a diffrent room and this funks up the wii remote badly, i was wandering what i was forabt 2weeks and the realised lol