I use it to play PC games with a Wiimote, but my main concern is with power usage. I don't like the idea of having both my PC and Wii U taking up electricity.
How to turn on the Gamepad’s IR without turning on the Wii U itself
pcwii-uwiimote
Related Solutions
According to PsyBlade and KDH in this thread, it's possible. Here's the approximate way of achieving this:
Many drives can be set up to appear shorter (Host Protected Area -- HPA). So, the main idea is the following:
- Set HPA on your HDD.
- Format the HDD on WiiU.
- From your PC, remove HPA, then write a partition table at the end of the drive, in the space that was protected by HPA.
- Set your linux kernel to read the partition tables at the end of the drive.
- Set HPA each time you're using your drive on WiiU, and remove it each time you're using it on Linux.
The precise explanations are detailed in this post (but the whole thread is informative).
I take no responsability whatsoever for any loss of data consecutive to you trying to follow my explanations. Play safe, backup your data before attempting any partitioning task!
I couldn't find a list of those icons, so for now, I'm going to describe the ones from the screenshots provided in the comments.
From left to right:
- Obviously the Wii U GamePad: the main controller for the Wii U.
- The Wii U Pro Controller: a more traditional controller, similar to the Xbox 360 controller.
- The Wii Remote aka Wiimote: the main controller for the Wii.
- The Nunchuck: an add-on for the Wiimote, adding an analog stick, two shoulder buttons and another accelerometer.
- The Classic Controller: an add-on for the Wiimote that acts as a traditional controller.
- Possibly the PDP headset, but it could also refer to headsets in general.
Last icon:
- The Wii Wheel: Actually, it's just a piece of plastic to make the Wiimote feel like a wheel.
Related Topic
- Which Wiimote works best with Wii U
- Enter Wii mode on Wii U without sensor bar
- Would an old Nintendo Wii remote work with a Wii U (without the gamepad)
- Does the Wii/Wii U sensor bar need to be plugged into the console to function
- Does the Wii U game pad actually detect breath
- Is possible to connect a Wiimote to a USB Port for power
- Mario Kart – How is the Wii Wheel Detected?
Best Answer
Short answer:
You can't.
Long answer:
You could mod the gamepad to only turn on the gamepad's Sensor Bar, but if you could do that, you'd have significantly better options to choose from.
The "Sensor" Bar, unlike its name implies, doesn't have any sensors at all. It's simply made up of 2 IR lamps. That's it.
The actual sensors are in the Wiimote. The Wiimote senses the IR lights emitted by the Sensor Bar, and uses position, size, and distance of the lights to calculate where the cursor should be pointing, its rotation, and distance to the TV.
The Sensor Bar is so simple, in fact, that anybody could simply place two candles in front of the Wiimote, and it would work. Alternatively, two regular lamps would work as well, although they'd have to radiate enough heat for the Wiimote's sensor to pick up.
A better solution would be to use two IR lamps and create your own sensor bar. You can harvest IR lamps from TV remote controls. Or you could buy a Wireless Sensor Bar instead, which can be turned on even with the Wii U turned off.