Hacking Wii U wireless controller extender hack

[jayjay123]

http://uk.ign.com/wikis/wii-u/Increase_Wii_U_and_Gamepad_Range

I would say the physical distance is about 40ish ft but the walls and ceiling are the true obstacle. I can play it at the top of my stairs (approx 32ft from Wii U) and only about 8ft further is my side of the bed.

Would a repeater of some description, plugged in half way between, help bounce my current signal further?

There have been many discussions on using repeaters but it seems it's not feasible - likely latency related and the fact that repeaters halve the bandwidth available unfortunately.

IMO your best bet is to get a high gain directional antenna and try that.

 

[jayjay123]

Well done. This is great... I wish i could solder.... Or if there was a way to achieve this without soldering...

Unfortunately not, but if you do the tear down you can take it to someone who can solder just for that bit. Or you can get a crimp plug type connector and get your local electronics shop to crimp it for you.

 

[jayjay123]

Finally! I have grown very sick of losing the connection every single time I leave the room that my Wii U is in!

Thank you very much for this tutorial! I want to try it out, but is there any way to do this without cutting a hole in the Wii U casing? (just in case I need to send it in to Nintendo for repairs someday)

Good point, what you might do is de-solder the antenna wire, push it through the air vent on the side of the console and connect it to the antenna externally. If you have to send it in, just unsolder it from the external antenna and resolder it to the internal element as it was (just 2 solder points).

 

[jayjay123]

Updated OP after modding the antenna for 5Ghz.

 

[FluffyRedLobster]

Just wanted to post to say big thanks to jayjay123 for the idea on this and to share some learnings I made. I've just performed the operation myself (fitted a Alfa APA-M25 directional antenna) and the increased range is significant enough for me to now reach my lounge where I couldn't before.

One thing I would note, I think there is some confusion around which antenna should be replaced. The gamepad antennas are hooked up to the Hon Hai Mic-B2 board, under the mainboard. This board is 5Ghz only, and only deals with gamepad comms. The gamepad antennas are the rear most antennas, on my unit they were hooked up with red and grey wires. It's one of these you want to swap out for an external antenna. The antennas hooked up with black and white wires are from the Hon Hai WinA2 board, which is the regular Wifi networking board and is dual band 2.4GHz / 5Ghz. I imagine if you replace one of these you might see a small boost in Gamepad performance due to reduced interference having moved another potentially competing 5GHz antenna a little further away, but you're not directly improving the gamepad comms.

Couple of other notes that might be useful if anyone else tries this...

1) If you don't want to solder, you can buy pre-made wires to fit to the Mic-B2 board - search for U.FL to RP-SMA pigtail cable (assuming your new antenna is RP-SMA). Getting at that board does mean completely dismantling the Wii U though, soldering is probably easier

2) The Wii U broadcasts an 802.11n wireless network for gamepad comms, I found it really useful to use a wifi scanner (I used the Airport Utility on my iPhone) to track the quality of the signal with different antennas and antenna placements. It shows up as "Network name unavailable" with a MAC address beginning 8C:CD:E8 - that's Nintendo's ID.

Thanks again jayjay123 and I hope this helps others out...

 

[yahoo]

Updated OP after modding the antenna for 5Ghz.

Isn't the amount of power a main limiting factor? Just swapping antenas may help gain a little extra distance, but I would think they need to be supplied with adequate power to drive them and see a drastic improvement, as they are significantly larger (and have greater internal electrical resistance to overcome).

 

[jammybudga777]

i would really like to try this at some point but i was hopeing more people would have tried it out first. but its something i could do with

 

[jayjay123]

One thing I would note, I think there is some confusion around which antenna should be replaced. The gamepad antennas are hooked up to the Hon Hai Mic-B2 board, under the mainboard. This board is 5Ghz only, and only deals with gamepad comms. The gamepad antennas are the rear most antennas, on my unit they were hooked up with red and grey wires. It's one of these you want to swap out for an external antenna. The antennas hooked up with black and white wires are from the Hon Hai WinA2 board, which is the regular Wifi networking board and is dual band 2.4GHz / 5Ghz. I imagine if you replace one of these you might see a small boost in Gamepad performance due to reduced interference having moved another potentially competing 5GHz antenna a little further away, but you're not directly improving the gamepad comms.

Awesome work lobster! I'll take another look at the wires is soldered and swap if necessary/ update the OP. Ta for the heads up!

*EDIT*
I can confirm that FluffyRedLobster is correct:

WIN-A2 - This is the 2.4Ghz WiFi controller for network/internet connectivity (red/grey wires)
WIN-B2 - This is the Bluetooth controller
MIC-B2 - This is the 5Ghz WiFi card for the gamepad (black/white wires)

Confirmation here:
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Nintendo_Wii_U_Basic_Gaming_Console-whatsinside_text-150.aspx
http://www.wiiuonly.com/2012/11/wii-u-teardown-photos-and-video-surface.html

I will update the OP accordingly.
Only thing to add is to confirm that if you're replacing only one of the internal antennas, that you pick the most strategic one for your needs - horizontal or vertical. Alternatively, replace both with external antennas (just make sure you have them at right angles to each other to benefit).

 

[jayjay123]

Isn't the amount of power a main limiting factor? Just swapping antenas may help gain a little extra distance, but I would think they need to be supplied with adequate power to drive them and see a drastic improvement, as they are significantly larger (and have greater internal electrical resistance to overcome).

Not that much larger. Sure, if the output power is low it could be a factor but I doubt, given the bandwidth requirements, that they would underpower those antennas. My 5c

 

[75mak]

Just wanted to post to say big thanks to jayjay123 for the idea on this and to share some learnings I made. I've just performed the operation myself (fitted a Alfa APA-M25 directional antenna) and the increased range is significant enough for me to now reach my lounge where I couldn't before.

One thing I would note, I think there is some confusion around which antenna should be replaced. The gamepad antennas are hooked up to the Hon Hai Mic-B2 board, under the mainboard. This board is 5Ghz only, and only deals with gamepad comms. The gamepad antennas are the rear most antennas, on my unit they were hooked up with red and grey wires. It's one of these you want to swap out for an external antenna. The antennas hooked up with black and white wires are from the Hon Hai WinA2 board, which is the regular Wifi networking board and is dual band 2.4GHz / 5Ghz. I imagine if you replace one of these you might see a small boost in Gamepad performance due to reduced interference having moved another potentially competing 5GHz antenna a little further away, but you're not directly improving the gamepad comms.

Couple of other notes that might be useful if anyone else tries this...

1) If you don't want to solder, you can buy pre-made wires to fit to the Mic-B2 board - search for U.FL to RP-SMA pigtail cable (assuming your new antenna is RP-SMA). Getting at that board does mean completely dismantling the Wii U though, soldering is probably easier

2) The Wii U broadcasts an 802.11n wireless network for gamepad comms, I found it really useful to use a wifi scanner (I used the Airport Utility on my iPhone) to track the quality of the signal with different antennas and antenna placements. It shows up as "Network name unavailable" with a MAC address beginning 8C:CD:E8 - that's Nintendo's ID.

Thanks again jayjay123 and I hope this helps others out...

Thanks for the additional points... I might give the solderless option a go, if i can get round to finding a good simp-le guide to taking my wii u apart and have the courage to do it.

would it just be a case of using the U.FL to RP-SMA and attaching it to the board then threading it through the vent slots?

and how difficult would you say it is to dismantle the wii u completely and then put it back together?

 

[jayjay123]

Thanks for the additional points... I might give the solderless option a go, if i can get round to finding a good simp-le guide to taking my wii u apart and have the courage to do it.

would it just be a case of using the U.FL to RP-SMA and attaching it to the board then threading it through the vent slots?

and how difficult would you say it is to dismantle the wii u completely and then put it back together?

It's all in the opening post. It's not too hard. The gamepad is surprisingly a bit harder

 

[EclipseSin]

Get one of these and hook it up. Problem solved.

Might not need one so big tho. lol The outdoor antennas seem to be better for this kind of stuff. Just from experience though, no technical info to really back it up.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Get one of these and hook it up. Problem solved.

Might not need one so big tho. lol The outdoor antennas seem to be better for this kind of stuff. Just from experience though, no technical info to really back it up.

*Sittin in mah neighbor's house playin mah Wii U gaemz*

 

[EclipseSin]

*Sittin in mah neighbor's house playin mah Wii U gaemz*

Lol kinda. I have what I would call an "original" 802.11b router. It only reaches about 30-50ft by itself (cheap junk, company no longer existed a year after i bought it lol). Covers the whole house and patio with one similar to that hooked up to it.

 

[FluffyRedLobster]

Awesome work lobster! I'll take another look at the wires is soldered and swap if necessary/ update the OP. Ta for the heads up!

No worries - wouldn't have even thought of the idea without your post!

75mak - you have to go a bit deeper into the guts of the Wii U if you want to avoid soldering. It's fiddly (there must be about 30 screws), but it's a lot easier than dismantling a lot of consoles and aside from the tri-wing driver jayjay123 mentions in the OP you don't need any special tools. You could thread the end of the cable through the vents - that's what I did while I was testing. Once I was happy it was going to make a big enough improvement I drilled a hole in the back (eek!) above the HDMI socket.

yahoo - I wondered about power as well. I guess there will be a limit to the potential improvements with this method but it definitely does work. If nothing else with an external antenna you have the option to run an extension or use a directional antenna to cover a dead spot, which you can't do with the internals.

 

[jayjay123]

OP updated after correction thanks FluffyRedLobster! See post 28 above for more details and opening post. Lobster, if you have the time, please post some pics of yours?
Ta!

 

[S2H69]

Sorry for the necro, but I was linked here from reddit.

The work you've done here is really good, but let's look at what you've done from an RF perspective:

• Wired in connectors for the antenna (Good, as long as the solder joints are clean)
• Trimmed the antenna length for 5.4 GHz (Good-ish, the length might be correct but the antenna might have built-in matching that is tuned to 2.4 GHz)
• Used an omnidirectional antenna (Bad!)

The gamepad and wii u console already have directional antennas built-in, as the gamepad is intended to be sitting in front of the console. This buys extended range towards the front of the console at the loss of range around the sides and rear. The omnidirectional antenna radiates in a donut-shape, so it radiates around the 'sides' of the antenna, but not so much in the directional that the antenna actually points. This buys better coverage around the antenna, at the expense of range in a specific direction.

Since you've gone through the work of putting some nice connectors in, I suggest you install a decent RF amp in line with the console's antenna, and either install a new directional antenna, or wire the original antenna back in (leaving it in its original physical orientation.

A quick google search found this:

http://www.rfcomp.com/hd24860.aspx

For more background info, I recommend this wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_budget

If you do the math with a 10 dB amplifier, you should increase the range by ~3 times (sqrt(10), actually).

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

S
2) Replace both internal antennas with high gain external antennas on the console (Ideally you will arrange them at different polarities - horizontal and vertical).

You also definitely *don't* want to arrange them in different polarizations. Eg. if you have a vertically polarized antenna on the transmitter, you want a vertically polarized antenna on the receiver.

 

[kimotori]

is it a good solution? link

 

[S2H69]

is it a good solution? link

I'd wager that it wouldn't work...although the frequency ranges this thing supports are the same as the frequencies the gamepad uses, the repeater is a W-Fi device, but the gamepad uses its own "special variant" of Wi-Fi to get the bytes flowing.

Explained another way, how would you configure the connection between gamepad and the Wii U to the repeater? Does the Gamepad show up on your Wi-Fi network as a recognized device? The Wii U to Gamepad connection doesn't take IP addresses or anything like that from the user, it all happens under the hood.

Sticking with my recommended RF amplifier, you are strictly dealing with RF power levels and don't have to worry about any of that Wi-Fi connection-oriented stuff

 

[Selim873]

where in the hell are you trying to play from...next door? the pro controller has more than enough range!

Don't want to bump this up, but I found this link on a very recent thread. This would be VERY useful to me, I can't even go into the next room over without the signal cutting off. My bedroom is actually just about a dead spot. Bitrate starts to drop when I get to my door about 10-15ft away.