Use a Wii Balance Board with Linux

In this post you’ll learn how to make a working Bluetooth weight sensor + fast real-time graphical display with about 200 lines of Python code. You can code any Nintendo Wii-like video game for Ubuntu/Linux and the Nintendo Balance Board very easily. Here’s a video demonstration:

This post assumes that you can already communicate with a Wiimote on Linux. See my earlier post if you haven’t done that.

You’ll need Subversion and autoconf installed if you haven’t already installed it. I think the official/full list of packages to install is

sudo apt-get install autoconf autogen automake gcc bluetooth libbluetooth2-dev libgtk2.0-dev pkg-config python2.5-dev flex bison subversion

You must also install the development package for BlueZ, which is the official Linux Bluetooth protocol stack:

sudo apt-get install libbluetooth-dev

Make a directory to hold your code:

mkdir ~/wiibalance
cd ~/wiibalance

Check out the CWiid (get it? CWiid? Seaweed?) library using Subversion:

svn co http://abstrakraft.org/cwiid/svn/

When I checked CWiid out, it was up to version 183.

Compile the library, e.g.

cd ~/wiibalance/svn/trunk
autoconf
./configure --libdir=/usr/lib (according to this page, you need the libdir parameter on Ubuntu)
make
sudo make install

Now apply the patch to CWiid to add the Balance board. Go to http://abstrakraft.org/cwiid/ticket/63, click on balance.diff, then at the bottom of the resulting page, click on “Original Format” to download the diff as a raw text file. Do the same to download the “weighdemo.py” file. Now apply the balance.diff patch:

patch --dry-run -b -p0 < balance.diff (this command tests that everything would apply without errors)
patch -b -p0 < balance.diff

Finally, compile the code and install it:

make
sudo make install

Then you can play with the weighdemo.py script. You’ll want to change the line “sys.path.insert(0, ‘/home/tbble/code/cwiid/svn/cwiid/python/build/lib.linux-x86
_64-2.5/’)” to point to the right place on your system, e.g. /home/youraccountname/wiibalance/svn/trunk/python/build/lib.linux-i686-2.5/ . And you may need to disable the “if wiimote.state['ext_type'] != cwiid.EXT_BALANCE” if statement. I also added a few lines to print out the values and calibration numbers for the four sensors. Here’s what I get when I run my program:

$ ./weighdemo.py
Put Wiimote in discoverable mode now (press 1+2)…
Type q to quit, or anything else to report your weight

right_top 2249 [2293, 4004, 5725]
right_bottom 1467 [1449, 3155, 4874]
left_top 12471 [12476, 14238, 16015]
left_bottom 6822 [6848, 8581, 10325]
-0.58kg
Type q to quit, or anything else to report your weight

right_top 3618 [2293, 4004, 5725]
right_bottom 3983 [1449, 3155, 4874]
left_top 14208 [12476, 14238, 16015]
left_bottom 9621 [6848, 8581, 10325]
82.18kg

In this run, the first example is weighing with nothing on the scale. The second example is with me standing on the scale.

Here’s what you need to know. First, absorb this info from the Wikipedia entry:

Although the Japanese packaging states that it is designed to support people weighing up to 136 kilograms (300 pounds) and the “Western” Balance Board up to 150 kg (330 pounds), they are actually the same board. The packaging differs due to laws in Japan and other nations regarding weights and measures. While the board only displays weight readings up to what is printed on the packaging, the actual physical structure of the board can withstand much greater force equivalent to around 300 kg (660 pounds).

Okay, so the Wii Balance Board is certified for 300 pounds (136 kg) in Japan and 330 pounds (150 kg) in the U.S. The Wii Balance Board has four sensors, so each sensor is certified for up to 136 kg / 4 = 34 kg per sensor in Japan or 150 kg / 4 = 37.5kg per sensor in the United States. Now that you’ve been schooled on that, the following Wii Balance Board calibration information from WiiBrew will make more sense.

Each sensor returns 2 bytes of data and also has six bytes of calibration data. Think of it as a 16 bit number and three calibration numbers, that are also 16 bits apiece. The three calibration numbers correspond to the sensor reading for 0 kg, 17 kg, and 34 kg (those numbers should look familiar if you look at the previous paragraph). So if sensor #1 gives a value of 5725 and the 34 kg number is also 5725, then that sensor is reporting exactly 34 kg of weight on it.

The WiiBrew page says “Calculating the weight on each sensor simply involves interpolating between the two calibration values your reading falls between (or using the higher two values if your reading exceeds the highest calibration value), and the total weight on the board is the sum of these [four sensor] values.”

With that info, let’s go back to one of my sensor readings and convert it to actual kg. Take the reading “right_top 3618 [2293, 4004, 5725]“. The sensor value is 3618, which is between the 0 kg calibration number of 2293 and the 17 kg calibration number of 4004. So the weight on the right_top sensor is 17kg * (3618-2293)/(4004-2293) or 17kg * 0.7744 or 13.2 kg. I tend to put my weight on the back of my feet, which is why 13.2 kg is a little lower than my total weight (82 kg) divided by the four sensors, which would be 20.5 kg per sensor.

If your eyes haven’t completely glazed over, the upshot is that the Balance Board has four independent weight sensors, each calibrated to kilograms, and you can read those sensors in real-time over Bluetooth. Translating the sensor values into weight only takes four lines of Python code. From there, you can do anything you want with that data. Play a game, hook your Wii Balance Board up to Google Earth, or you can even automatically upload your weight to a Google Spreadsheet.

For example, you can run the command “sudo apt-get install python-pygame” to install pygame. Then go back to this page and download the scalesgui.py and system.ini files as you did before (click on them, then click on “Original Format” at the bottom of the resulting page). Make scalesgui.py executable with “chmod a+x scalesgui.py” and comment out the “EXT_BALANCE” if statement, then run “./scalesgui.py” and this is what you’ll see:

This is a snapshot, but the program runs just as fast as any video game. You can lean and move the circle around really fast. And in the bottom right, you can see that I weigh 81.74 kg, which is about 180 pounds.

I know this is a long post, but the upshot is that with 10-15 minutes of work, you can use a Wii Balance Board as a real-time sensor with Linux. I hope you have fun!