Why does there appear to be no official rechargeable battery packs for the Wii? With a wireless controller I would have thought it would have been a no brainer to have one. Then Nintendo could have extracted more money for each wiimote they sell. Anyone used any of the third party chargers?
Don't like the idea of the pass through mains cable on that one, It always amazes me on reviews form play and Amazon etc that 50% say best thing ever 5 stars, 25% say destroyed remote 1star and the other 25% say things like have to remove wrist strap to charge 3 stars. Ideally I'd really like something like the 360 quick charge kit, where you charge the battery and not the whole remote. so far I might go for the nyko charge station as it has a seperate plug and fits the remote with the strap according to amazon.com's reviews
Have got the Nyko charge station, was well worth the money imo. The rubberized grips you are supplied with to replace the wiimote's original battery covers are a nice addition and the wiimotes fit nicely into the station without any probs.
My main concern with any of the rechargable units that I've seen so far for the Wii is that it replaces the two AA sized batteries with two AAA sized cells to allow the plastic module to fit inside the controller. This will mean a reduced capacity in battery power but how quicly they run out will depend on how hard you make the controllers work - by this I mean how much use it gets. My own preference is to use rechargable AA cells and keep a spare set already charged in case they run out mid-game. Plus you should remember that if you use either the (free) official Wii protective jackets or any of the after market silicon skins on the controllers then they will not fit into the charger cradles.
I'll second the Nyko kit. It's compact, holds the Wiimotes nicely, and most important: runs off the mains. I used a different brand previously and it ran off the USB ports. It was only sold in single units, so I had to get one for each Wiimote - no more USB ports. Plus, as Krazeh noted, the rubberized grip adds a little extra traction for when I'm delivering a mean backhand in tennis. Edit: Forgot to mention that the Nyko kit will last for hours upon hours of gaming. I've used the Wiimote for quite a long time without it ever dropping to the halfway point. I imagine you'd get bored or pass out before the battery died. -monkey
The WaveBird was an official wireless controller and it used plain-Jane AA batteries. Just pick up a decent third party rechargeable battery or spend $40 on a good set of rechargeable AA's and charging station. You can use them on more then one device that way. I know both Energizer and Duracell have good lines of high powered rechargeable batteries that'll even keep a power hungry digital camera happy.
I went for the joytech and it gets the job done. If I was buying one now I'd be tempted to go for the one I've seen where the unit is built into a replacement wii stand with the wiimote slots along the side - just makes that bit extra sense, can't remember who makes it though.
I just use rechargeable batteries, it's cheaper, and give me long battery life. I have ~20hours of battery life (speaker muted).
yes, but if you have 2 USB ports side by side, you can't put 2 batteries in. So you can't use your Wii or laptop USB's (you can with some laptop where they have separated USB ports) to recharge them.
I got a short usb extension with my Corsair Flash Voyager. I could use that if I even had one of those batteries
