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An eight-year-old from Wales, who only wanted to play on his Nintendo Wii, has suffered severe burns after using candles as a replacement for the sensor bar just like the video above.
A couple of tea lights were adapted in place of the IR sensor bar — which uses LEDs to assist the Wiimote in positioning itself — when it appears that his original sensor bar was on the fritz. Gamers have found that the Wii’s sensor bar can be replaced by any two infra-red sources, and in this unlucky case, a pair of tea lights.
The boy, Cairan Davies of Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, was airlifted to hospital from his home and is recovering from his burns in a specialist unit, but it is unclear exactly how the accident happened. I would have gone with a couple of old TV remotes, but then pyromaniacs come young these days. Ouch. [BBC News]
The kid learned a very important life lesson that day. Motion controls will never be as safe as standard controls… and something about candles too.
Who leaves an 8 year old alone upstairs playing with candles?
I’m sure I remember hearing that tea-lights have a habit of exploding if there are bubbles in the wax. Something to do with the heat causing pressure in the bubbles, that then explode :-/
I heard that too. Also, puting tea lights straight onto any surface is a dumb thing to do. The bottom gets really hot and it’s possible for wax to leak out of the holder.
I always thought it worked in reverse, the sensor bar read the position of the IR LEDs in the Wiimote. You learn something new everyday.
I also thought that too!
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Also youtube vids get in the way of the logging screen so logging in is more annoying.
Sound’s like something that would happen down in Camarthenshire, there really isn’t a lot to do when you head that west! unless you go that little bit further to the beach xD
Nah, Welsh people are just more flammable than any other race.