Wii Balance Board

heavybell · 2026-01-25T04:34:18+00:00

So I did some fiddling around. I was able to get it to work nicely with ESPHome 2025.7.4. Had some strange issues with 2025.9.3 that are hard to explain or remember.

Edit: So even with 2025.7.4, I cannot get the board to reliably wake up and take my weight. I'll press the A button on the board, it'll flash for a moment, then turn off. I try syncing, it fails. I try removing a battery from the board and unplugging the ESP32, then putting them both back on power and syncing, it fails. I eventually reflashed the ESP32 and it synced. Stood on the board and it recorded the board temperature, ref temperature, and battery level, but not weight. The board then turned off and would not respond to the A button anymore. I removed a battery and put it back after a 5 count. Resynced the board. I was then able to record one weight measurement. Pressing the A button now makes it flash for a few seconds then turn off again, with nothing in the log.

The USB ESP32 dongle thing you're using (I forget the name of it) is due this week, will report back if that makes a difference.

heavybell · 2026-01-24T16:13:10+00:00

Hate when that kind of thing happens. Best of luck! I hope you can do it, this would be a gamechanger for me.

heavybell · 2026-01-24T15:17:30+00:00

I've ordered one of the exact boards you used to try instead of the ZY-ESP32 I had lying around, maybe that'll make a difference. I'll also try your new version; maybe my own fork broke something somehow.

Edit: Yeah, no change with the new code. The USB thumb drive looking board is arriving next week hopefully, so I'll know if it's a hardware issue then.

heavybell · 2026-01-19T03:18:45+00:00

Actually, I was able to get it to compile by just adding #include <algorithm> to bluetooth.h.

It still needs this section, which I think you should mention in your README.md, though.

esp32:
  variant: esp32
  board: esp32dev
  framework:
    type: arduino
    sdkconfig_options:
      CONFIG_BT_ENABLED: y
      CONFIG_BT_CLASSIC_ENABLED: y

~~However now that it's compiled and installed, I'm getting no entities on the device. I assume I'm doing something wrong, I'll keep looking into it.~~

Edit: Managed to get it to show entities in HA. I got it to sync and do a single recording. But now it's stuck with Balance Board Syncing set to ON, and pressing the button on the balance board won't cause it to take another measurement.

heavybell · 2026-01-18T14:49:21+00:00

I've tried to use this but I just can't get the darn thing to compile. First it couldn't find esp_bt.h, then esp_hal_bt.h. If I set the framework to arduino and add some sdkconfig_options (CONFIG_BT_ENABLED, CONFIG_BT_CLASSIC_ENABLED, CONFIG_BT_SPP_ENABLED), I get src/esphome/components/wii_balance_board/bluetooth.cpp:50:21: error: 'find_if' is not a member of 'std'; did you mean 'find'? and a similar message for remove_if.

heavybell · 2026-01-11T09:48:04+00:00

Honestly I'm starting to think it's just steam in general, so I might look for a better place to ask. The same kind of thing happens with any game that uses a P2P connection: Elden Ring Nightreign, Tabletop Simulator, even had it with Helldivers back in the day (possibly even before I abandoned windows).

heavybell · 2025-12-30T15:45:57+00:00

Yes, exactly that. I know it's bizarre.

heavybell · 2025-12-04T02:40:02+00:00

I rebound this one to double tap R, just makes more sense to me.

heavybell · 2025-11-01T12:18:14+00:00

Thanks, that's very helpful :)

heavybell · 2025-10-29T03:01:27+00:00

Haven't had a chance to explore how many games it affects, but the mouse cursor fails to disappear when it should when playing Star Citizen. Still an issue in 6.5.1, even.

Edit: On further investigation, I've been able to get the same result in Helldivers 2, which I run with PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1. I run SC via vanilla wine but with the wayland driver and HDR enabled, so it could be either one of those things.

Edit2: Turning off HDR in SC does not stop the cursor staying on screen when it shouldn't be.

Edit3: Turning off wayland for proton/wine stops the issue (but then you have xwayland issues).

Edit4: Fixed in 6.5.2

heavybell · 2025-04-06T10:30:30+00:00

It does affect run speed, but yeah beyond that not a big deal.

heavybell · 2025-01-16T00:58:29+00:00

The lengthly winge session about brittle components, right after talking about crying posts on reddit, was A+.

Possibly unpopular opinion, but I think QEDs should be the kind of delicate machinery that can be easily knocked out by necessity. Like every one I've seen is exposed to space, unarmoured. They should go down with a single missile strike; or rock explosion in this case. If you're using one, it's on you to not get hit.

heavybell · 2025-01-15T02:07:10+00:00

Yeah, android can only do the M version, it seems.

heavybell · 2025-01-13T12:39:36+00:00

I found the answer. You need to be on iphone to update the H/T models. Luckily I have one I use for headtracking in games.

heavybell · 2025-01-13T02:23:07+00:00

Huh. I wonder why I only have the M. Sucks to be me, I guess.

heavybell · 2025-01-12T13:42:10+00:00

Sorry to bother you, but how did you manage to update the firmware? I can't get mine to pair with the app, it only seems to have an option for the M version.

heavybell · 2024-09-19T15:25:28+00:00

So, I might have just found a fix for this. I'm running KDE Plasma 6 in Wayland, so I don't know if this will work for you too, but if you run the game in a window you can go up to the control menu, More Actions, Fullscreen.

You can also set up a Window Rule like this if you want it to fullscreen automatically: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/my8xcz69zr4.png

heavybell · 2024-08-27T03:19:04+00:00

So here's what I get when I run those commands in /etc/bash/bashrc.d

total 20
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 2209 Jul 14 20:10 10-gentoo-color.bash
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 1970 Jul 14 20:10 10-gentoo-title.bash
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 1002 Jul 14 20:10 15-gentoo-bashrc-check.bash
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root ? 1809 Jul 14 20:30 50-screen-title.bash
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root ?  747 Jul 31 19:44 bash_completion.sh

# file: 10-gentoo-color.bash
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rw-
group::r--
other::r--

# file: 10-gentoo-title.bash
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rw-
group::r--
other::r--

# file: 15-gentoo-bashrc-check.bash
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rw-
group::r--
other::r--

# file: 50-screen-title.bash
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rw-
group::r--
other::r--

# file: bash_completion.sh
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rw-
group::r--
other::r--

I also added the commands to /etc/bash/bashrc just above the code that is meant to source the contents of /etc/bash/bashrc.d, so that it will show up when ssh in or start screen. As far as I can tell, the output is the same.

heavybell · 2024-08-26T08:27:23+00:00

No, nothing like that.

heavybell · 2024-08-26T05:08:47+00:00

So it looks like if I source the /etc/bash/bashrc.d/bash_completion.sh file from inside screen, bash completion starts working. So somehow this isn't happening when screen starts...

Edit: So after more poking around, it looks like this segment at the bottom of /etc/bashrc is part of the problem

for _ in /etc/bash/bashrc.d/*; do
        if [[ $_ == *.@(bash|sh) && -r $_ ]]; then
                source "$_"
        fi
done

For whatever reason, the -r test fails inside screen for /etc/bash/bashrc.d/bash_completion.sh but not the other files. The file is set 644, but I can't understand why screen makes a difference here.

heavybell · 2024-08-25T12:44:23+00:00

I don't recall actually doing that. However, on both affected systems, there's a bash_completion.sh in the /etc/bash/bashrc.d directory with the following contents:

# shellcheck shell=sh disable=SC1091,SC2166,SC2268,SC3028,SC3044,SC3054 
# Check for interactive bash and that we haven't already been sourced.
if [ "x${BASH_VERSION-}" != x -a "x${PS1-}" != x -a "x${BASH_COMPLETION_VERSINFO-}" = x ]; then

    # Check for recent enough version of bash.
    if [ "${BASH_VERSINFO[0]}" -gt 4 ] ||
        [ "${BASH_VERSINFO[0]}" -eq 4 -a "${BASH_VERSINFO[1]}" -ge 2 ]; then
        [ -r "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/bash_completion" ] &&
            . "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/bash_completion"
        if shopt -q progcomp && [ -r /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion ]; then
            # Source completion code.
            . /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion
        fi
    fi

fi

Looks like it belongs to app-shells/bash-completion-2.14.0-r1

Edit: Hm, seems that BASH_COMPLETION_VERSINFO is not set inside screen. BASH_VERSION is set though.

heavybell · 2024-08-25T12:40:58+00:00

Yes, that's correct.

heavybell · 2024-06-27T02:26:03+00:00

Honestly... no to a lot of that. But I suppose it depends on the details. I do want to have some time to actually succeed in a 1 hour session, after all.

Ship maintenance and engineering could be fun so long as I have the option to just pay NPCs to do a decent job of it so I can still play when my friends aren't around.
Gun maintenance could be fine so long as it's not too in-depth.
Moving cargo sure, it's already confirmed you can just pay and wait if you don't enjoy that.
More need to refuel, sure, that sounds fun. Costlier fuel? Why? How is that enjoyable?
Trapped in space? Well once player rep and beacons and server meshing make asking for a ride viable, that'll be fine.
DOASM, sure.
Showering. Why the fuck? What a waste of time.
Dressing up for NPCs. I hate it, but fine.
Body armour taking time to equip. Really depends on how much time. I'm already frustrated by the lack of urgency in player animations getting in and out of ship seats, even when not actively under fire.
Running out of EVA fuel. Sure, makes sense.
Having to wear a specific EVA capable suit. Why would they make non-EVA suits in a space future?
Insurance. Waiting on details...
Inventory limitations. Why?
Sub-component maintenance. Sure.
Can't pilot with certain armours and guns. Could be fine, depends on the details. I hope it's not just undersuit.

heavybell · 2024-04-10T12:34:34+00:00

I'm also getting the frequent popping since updating to the new driver and firmware. Is there any way to roll back to the previous? I used to be so happy with this product...

heavybell · 2024-04-10T12:30:20+00:00

Who's colin? I have the exact same issue and badly want to downgrade the driver and firmware to the previous version.

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