Penguin United produces a battery pack for the Wii. It consists of a battery and a new cover to fit in the Wii Remote. The new Cover has connectors for the battery on the inside and the charger on the outside. The design is simple; the Wii Remote is just stuck into the charger and it charges.
The charger is a simple dock that plugs into one of the USB ports on the back of the Wii. The Charger has a light on the front that is steady green when charging, then starts blinking green when it is finished.
Penguin United claims the battery pack will last for up to thirty eight hours. The Wii makes it easy to find out how long the battery lasts. It keeps track of how long people play games on the Wii.
So to test this battery, and the claim that goes with it, out, the battery was entirely charged on a Friday, and then played until the battery died. I then added up all the time playing the Wii. This added up to sixteen hours. This was less than they claimed, but part of it can be credited to battery loss when the Wii Remote wasn’t actually being used or on standby.
Sixteen hours is plenty of time for a Wii Remote since the charger can charge the batteries overnight. I found that from my tests if you put the Wii Remote onto the charger every night that the battery pack will never run out on the user. Penguin United is also now selling packages with multiple batteries this way the charger can be shared between both remotes, and again as long as the Wii isn’t used for more than 16 hours in a row it shouldn’t be a problem.
Unfortunately though, it is not compatible with any of the third party Wii Remote covers. It would be nice if there was a way to still plug the Wii Remote into the charger with a case on it.
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