May
29
2014

Unity + Wii Balance Board

An article by mgear

640px-Wii_Balance_Board
Some notes/links on how to connect Wii Balance Board with Unity & windows pc. (main image from wikipedia)

Setting it up:
– You need bluetooth on your pc (you can use USB bluetooth adapters also)
– WiiBalanceBoardWalker comes with testing tools, to check if connection works (it also allows setting up permanent sync, no need to sync devices every time)
– When connecting the board & pc, click sync button under the battery cover in board, then add bluetooth device in Pc (or use WiiBalanceWalker to find the bluetooth device)

Tested: (and it works)
– Using Wii Balance Board Walker (it uses the board as keyboard or joystick, so you can use it anywhere. *Super easy) *archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/20171012162643/https://www.greycube.com/site/download.php?view.68 *file link: http://www.greycube.com/files/WiiBalanceWalker_v0.4.zip
– Unity Indie VRPN Adapter plugin (server/client plugin, receives data from board, unity script polls it using sockets, c#. *Quite easy, just have to fiddle with config files, depending if you use some wiimotes also)

Not tested:
– UniWii (windows package download link is broken) *Founded some versions in github search, but the dll doesnt have any methods to get balance board data?
– WRPNWrapper (needs PRO, this should be faster than UIVA, but their website was down for the few days while I tried to get it..now the page works)

—

Problems / Todo:
– How to calibrate the board or filter the data? (because sometimes it gives “random” values in rawdata, instead of clean 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0…)
– How to reconnect board again (without syncing again) after pc was shutdown (or after board was shutdown) ?
– Is there a way to connect power cable to wii balance board? (instead of using batteries..)
– Is there a way to stop auto power off from wii balance board? (because you need to connect then again..)

—

Resources:
– Technical details (wiibrew.org)
– How to add bluetooth device
– Permanent device pairing
–

Tags: controller, plugin, wii balance board

About the Author:

.fi

13 Comments + Add Comment

Neith 26/05/2015 at 00:14

I was hoping you had info on how to get VRPN working in Windows 7 64-bit. Every time I try to start up a VRPN server (release/vrpn servers/[whatever]/vrpn_server.exe) I get error: The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect.

Any ideas?

Reply
- mgear 26/05/2015 at 00:20
  
  Do you mean the “nity Indie VRPN Adapter (UIVA)”, I’ll check if I still find the config files.. if not mistaken, the original config files had some info what you needed to modify.
  
  Reply
  - Neith 26/05/2015 at 17:45
    
    Yeah, I uncommented the lines for each control, but the .exe throws the error regardless. I’m wondering if it’s due to a different OS, different .NET version, different MSVS version, or what.
    
    Reply
- Holly 23/11/2015 at 22:00
  
  did you find a solution for this problem? I get the same error and couldn’t find one on the internet yet :/
  
  Reply
Vladimir 21/10/2015 at 17:05

I got it working in windows via TCP/IP communication with an Unity client, using Wii Balance Walker.

Reply
- MAFE 18/08/2017 at 21:59
  
  HI, Vladimir, will you help me with the TCP/IP and client, i’m kind of knew with servers. Do you have a tutorial? Thanks.
  
  Reply
mgear 24/11/2015 at 12:37

here is my VRPN server config file
https://gist.github.com/unitycoder/447c1db2e9c55cd72b0e
( folder uiva_1.02\Release\VRPN servers\Wiimote + WiiFit Balance Board\ )

and uiva_1.02\Release\UIVA_Server config file:
https://gist.github.com/unitycoder/ca3dd764f83a1834938d

Reply
Steve 19/04/2016 at 05:42

Hey there!
Thanks for the article mgear but unfortunately
I have the same issue as Neith and Holly.
I get an error when i try to open the vrpn_server.exe:
The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect

Did anyone find a solution for that?

Best regards

Reply
- mgear 20/04/2016 at 19:48
  
  Haven’t tried it since 2014 either.. have you tried commenting everything out in the config file?
  
  Reply
Timon 01/11/2016 at 13:18

Hey there,

I unfortunately get the same error as Steve, Neith and Holly.
(The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect)

Has anyone figured out how to make this work?

Thanks in advance =)
Timon

Reply
MAFE 19/08/2017 at 00:14

Hello, i have the Balance board Big Ben, is the cheap version of the Wii balance, i was wondering if you know any way to conect it to Unity…
Thanks

Reply
lshachar 10/11/2020 at 17:53

I just released a new version of WiiBalanceWalker (v0.5), with support for 64bit systems and several other improvements.
https://github.com/lshachar/WiiBalanceWalker/releases

Reply
- mgear 11/11/2020 at 08:10
  
  nice!
  
  Reply