hid-wiimote-plus

This is a modification of the built-in Linux kernel module for Nintendo Wii remotes. It's a drop-in replacement for the original module.

Differences from the original Linux driver

The original driver does not follow the Linux input conventions. This table shows how the inputs are handled differently:

Input	hid-wiimote (original)	hid-wiimote-plus	Why
Remote d-pad	Mapped to keyboard arrows.	Mapped to BTN_DPAD_* buttons.	It's a gamepad, not a keyboard.
Plus/minus buttons	Mapped to keyboard "next/prev" multimedia keys.	Mapped to BTN_START/BTN_SELECT.	The plus/minus buttons are used as start/select, sometimes it's even written on the button.
Sticks	Inverted Y axis.	Normal Y axis.	The Linux docs say negative Y means "up", positive Y means "down".
CC and CCPro	Face buttons are mapped to button names (A, B, X, Y).	Face buttons are mapped to directions (north, south, east, west).	The Linux docs say face buttons in a diamond layout should be mapped to the directions.
CCPro	Bogus analog TL/TR triggers.	Does not have analog TL/TR triggers.	A device should not report triggers it doesn't have.
Balance Board	The 4 pressure sensors are combined as a pair of 2-D axes.	The 4 pressure sensors are reported as 4 separated axes.	The pressure sensors do not represent position in any way, they shouldn't be reported as such.
Accelerometer	Does not report INPUT_PROP_ACCELEROMETER and uses the wrong axes (RX, RY, RZ).	Reports INPUT_PROP_ACCELEROMETER, and uses the correct axes (X, Y, Z).	For "accelerometer" inputs, the left axes are reserved for linear acceleration, the right axes are for angular acceleration.
Motion Plus	Does not report INPUT_PROP_ACCELEROMETER.	Reports INPUT_PROP_ACCELEROMETER.	Applications won't be fooled into thinking it's a positional input.
CC and CCPro	Has an option to emulate the left stick with the d-pad.	Does not have this option.	Emulating/remapping input does not belong to a device driver.

Battery reporting is more detailed, and there's special handling for the Wii U Pro Controller and Balance Board devices.

In the debugfs interface, the original driver only exposes the EEPROM as read-only; now it's also writeable, and the registers are also available.

Memory allocations are now tied to the device node; this ensures no memory can leak after the device disconnects.

Installation

You will need the kernel development headers in your system. Additionally, you will need the DKMS package; it allows for easy install and uninstall, and will automatically rebuild the module when the kernel is updated.

Use the command:

sudo make install

To uninstall, use:

sudo make uninstall

If you just want to test it, without installing it, use these commands instead (DKMS is not needed in this case):

make
sudo rmmod hid-wiimote # unload current hid-wiimote module
sudo insmod ./hid-wiimote.ko

Udev scripts

Two scripts will be installed to /etc/udev/:

• /etc/udev/rules.d/99-wiimote.rules: this will ensure the devices have global read-write permissions (MODE=0666).

  You can edit this file to inhibit devices that do not intend to use, to prevent games from reading (and possibly misinterpreting the inputs) from them.

  By default, accelerometer, gyro and IR inputs are all inhibited.

  After editing this file, you have to unplug/disconnect the controller, and plug/connect it again.

• /etc/udev/hwdb.d/99-wiimote.hwdb: this forces all wiimote devices to be interpreted as joysticks (ID_INPUT_JOYSTICK=1).

  After editing this file, remember to run sudo systemd-hwdb update.

Testing

You can use the evemu-record command from the evemu package to test if a device is generating events.

Battery information can be checked with upower -d, or inxi -B.