It's been a while since I blogged about something I pay attention to in Ubuntu, get ready! Today I talk about using a Wiimote to watch videos.

If you already own a Wii and a cheap Bluetooth adapter, there's a lot of fun stuff you can do in Linux with the Wiimote. The simplest and most immediately useful is to use it as an alternative input device.

A quick rundown: install package wminput, modprobe uinput, and run sudo wminput -d . wminput will listen on bluetooth for the wiimote, and translate into mouse cursor movement and keystrokes according to it's default config file. Press 1+2 on the WiiMote to put it into discovery mode, and it should connect in a few seconds.

I use the following as my wminput config file:

# remote - settings appropriate for totem/mplayer/mythTV

Wiimote.A = KEY_SPACE
Wiimote.B = KEY_ENTER
Wiimote.Up = KEY_VOLUMEUP
Wiimote.Down = KEY_VOLUMEDOWN
Wiimote.Left = KEY_LEFT
Wiimote.Right = KEY_RIGHT
Wiimote.Minus = KEY_BACK
Wiimote.Plus = KEY_FORWARD
Wiimote.Home = KEY_ESC
Wiimote.1 = KEY_F
Wiimote.2 = KEY_PROG2

Put it in ~.cwiid/wminput/default and you won't have to specify it on the command line! The idea is that D-pad left and right scan through the video, up and down turn the volume down, A triggers pause/play, and 1 toggles fullscreen. I don't know what KEY_PROG2 is good for, but it felt wrong to leave a button unmapped. No tilt sensing or mousing here, since I want to be able to set the wiimote down and enjoy the show.

Some might think that KEY_PLAYPAUSE would be more function specific than KEY_SPACE, but they are wrong; none of the players appear to support that. My hope is that in the future I can find settings more universal; my USB keyboard has buttons that trigger rhythmbox, so maybe that mechanism can be exposed.

There hasn't been a lot of activity upstream, aside from applying a patch from Mario Limonciello (superm1). I'm not sure if it's a sign of maturity or of project failure.