Who in their right mind would need a travel Wii sensor bar, you might be wondering. But the thing is, unlike the pricier, and heavier, PS3 and Xbox 360, the Wii isn't that big a pain in the ass to carry around with you when traveling, say for holidays. For instance, I'm bringing the Wii with the family as we drive from Colorado to Georgia. (We leave tonight.) In fact, I've managed to get the Wii to work on the mini-van's drop down television, but more on that later.

The point is that Talismoon's new travel sensor bar for the Wii isn't that bad an idea. Most of us were stupid, at least I was, and stuck our sensor bars to our televisions, making moving it a pain in the butt. And the thing is sort of unwieldy. The travel bar comes with a retractable wire and two much smaller sensors. The whole thing is smaller than a pack of cigarettes, according to the press release. Yes, they compared something for a Wii to a pack of cigarettes.

The most interesting thing is that the product claims to let you adjust how close you can be to play with the Wii, which is a huge plus for those of us hoping to play Super Mario Galaxy at 70 miles-an-hour.

Travel Sensor Bar

Why are we writing about it then? Because it almost duped us for a moment. Well played, retractable travel Wii sensor bar, well played.

RETRACTABLE TRAVEL SENSOR BAR FOR WII [via gonintendo]

Don't need, don't want it. But, for people who hate wires, this might be perfect. Back in December, we (not "we," Luke actually) posted a wireless Sensor Bar. It kinda sucked.

Nyko's releasing its own wireless Sensor Bar this March for US $19.99, and it actually looks pretty slick. It's housed in a black casing and roughly the same size as the original — That's including 4AA batteries for 30 hours of wireless support! Since the Nyko bar doesn't know when the Wii is on, there's a timer which beeps to remind you to switch the thing off. Its sensing is even more powerful than the first party wired Sensor Bar. Still don't want one, but if I did, this would be it. Brian Ashcraft

Wireless Sensor Bar [IGN]

As I predicted way back when Nintendo first announced the sensor bar for the WIi, people who front projection systems are sorta screwed. Actually, they are totally screwed unless their projector is mounted within a dozen feet or so of the surface they are projecting on.

One gamer, whose distance between projector and wall is 30-feet, decided to hack apart that super thin sensor wire and make his own extra-long connection.

Stuck without a way to make the console work as I needed a 30' sensor bar connection and not seeing anyone else take the plunge yet, I snipped my sensor bar wire in order to splice in an extension.

The wire is 2 conductor stranded and very thin. There's white fabric shielding around the wires and a couple strands of white shielding wrapped up with the wires. The 2 conductor wires are twisted. So, I stripped the lines back and separated to the two wires. Again, they are very fine, thin strands. One is red and one is orange.

I cut a short segment of 24 gauge, 2 conductor wire I bought at Radio Shack, and proceeded to solder it in for testing. I figured no sense using a huge wire length just to verify if this works. The sensor bar wire doesn't take to solder too well. It was resistant to sticking. Finally, though, I got the solder to stick and went to test.

Long story short, he redid the solder three times before it worked, which may have been because of a bad solder or because the hacker forgot to recycle his Wii during the testing phase. Brian Crecente

It is watching you. Always. Reader Jay points out that the Wii Sensor Bar is constantly lit while playing. He took some still images with a nightshot video camera just to drive the point home. The ironic bit? Why, it was a Sony video camera! Brian Ashcraft

Those that have their hearts set on shinning sunlight directly onto their Wii Sensor Bar are worried. Worried that they won't be able to play their Wii in the middle of Death Valley at high noon. And damn well they should be! But, Nintendo isn't worried and doesn't think there is anything to worry about. A company rep tells 1Up:

Our testing thus far shows no great risk of light interference when playing a game that relies on the pointer and sensor bar.

And there you have it. The Wii Sensor Bar ain't no vampire. Brian Ashcraft

Sensor Issue [1Up]

We are so not worried about sunlight and the Wii-mote. Once we get ours, we'll take it outside and look at it. Then, we'll take it inside, plug the it in and seal Kotaku Tower in duct tape so we can play Super Monkey Ball in pitch black darkness.

We've heard whisperings of Wii-mote sensor interference back at TGS, and recent chatter of OMG-Wii-mote-hates-sunlight has hit the intertubes. Game site Go Nintendo directs our attention to an Nintendo-interviews-Nintendo in which company CEO Satoru Iwata quizzes Product Development dude Akio Ikeda about apparent problems:

Iwata: This so-called 'beam' connecting the user and the television was something that had never been attempted before. Didn't you run into any difficulties during development?

Ikeda: In the early stages of development we ran into a number of problems that we hadn't anticipated, like the fact that the controller would react to fluorescent light, for example. Creating a mechanism that prevents the controller from responding to fluorescent light and sunlight may sound like low-profile activities, but it still gave us a lot to work on.

No worries! Iwata and the boys are on it! Bring on the sunlight. (Just keep it away from the sensor bar.) Brian Ashcraft

It Was a Prob [Go Nintendo]