I am new at this and have a project idea that I would like to create.
On a wiimote, there is a IR sensor that picks up an IR Light. Idk how but it is interpreted and when connected to my computer via bluetooth, can display the position of the light (x,y). Is it possible to make a system that just contains the IR sensor, a piece that understands location or however this is done, and a way to connect it to the computer (USB preferred). Could it be seen as a HID like a joystick x,y or similar?
I know for a fact that the “sensor” on the front of the Wiimote is actually a very low resolution blob tracking camera. You would have to desolder it from the wiimote and retrofit it somewhere else. I believe it uses I2C. I have looked and I don’t believe you can buy these what are called “Pixart” cameras by themselves…Also, the wiimote only picks up IR because of the IR filter plastic in front of Pixart camera. Without the plastic, it will pick up a “blob” of light in any spectrum. If I were you, I’d use GlovePIE input emulator (http://glovepie.org/poiuytrewq.php)to map the x,y of the blobs to the x,y of a virtual joystick or other HID. I assume you already have the Wiimote hooked up to your pc via bluetooth, so the GlovePIE emulation should not be hard. Also look at programs like winmote (http://onakasuita.org/wii/index-e.html) because they can tie the wiimote to the mouse for you without any other programs.
You could either use a stock arduino for the interface and output the blob information over the uart to the PC. This is easy to work with. Alternatively you could get a teensy (http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/), which are cheap, easy to breadboard, and have USB slave support. You could whip up a HID device in no time with one of those.