Our family loves the Wii game system, however every so often the Wii remotes start acting up.  Here are some real life fixes that have all worked for us, so I thought I'd share!

Usually, it's either a low battery issue or it's a synchronization issue.  Those are easy*. 

However, last night, one of the remotes wacked out (the blue one).  You could press the buttons and select options on the screen, but when you went to swing a golf-club, bowl, throw a boxing punch, or swing a baseball bat, the Wii remote acted like it wasn't there.  (This is exactly what you need when you turn the Wii on for your 5 year old, right?).  Sigh - okay, let the troubleshooting begin.

• Fresh batteries - nope.
• Re-sync the remote - nope.
• Re-sync all the remotes - nope.
• Reset the remote - still nope.

So, after exhausting all the options for getting a remote to work given in the Nintendo setup guide on on various support sites - I called the customer service line.... expecting the worst - but I was surprised.  A very pleasant woman answered my call within one minute of getting through the push-button maze to get to Wii Remote troubleshooting.

I explained what the problem was and what I had tried.  Then the conversation went something like this:

Friendly Nintendo Customer Service Woman: "Okay - I want you to take the remote, button side down and smack it into the palm of your hand two or three times."
Me: "You've got to be kidding"
Friendly Nintendo Customer Service Woman: "No ma'am, do it hard enough that I can hear it across the phone line but not hard enough to damage the remote"
Me: "You're sure?"
Friendly Nintendo Customer Service Woman: "Yes, ma'am."

So, button-side down, the wacked out Wii remote got smacked in the palm of my hand three times....

...and the thing worked!

Isnt' that weird?  Now, why don't they publish this fix on the support site?

I'm not saying this will work for everyone, but it worked for me and it might just be one of those weird things that works in a pinch.  I sort of remember doing something similarly strange with Atari cartridges - if you just blew in the cartridge before you stuck it in the console it fixed quirky issues.  Who really knows? 

*Low battery?  - Change the batteries. 
**Not synchronized?  - Synch the remote to the Wii console by opening the little door on the console and pressing the red button - at the same time, open the battery door of your Wii remote and press the little circular red button, and hold it down until the remote lights stop blinking.