The Wii has more than its fair share of charging solutions available. Countless products from different manufacturers that all perform the same tasks similarly and in almost identical fashion makes it easy to get lost when shopping for a decent controller charger. There have been many attempts at making excellent chargers, and only few have succeeded.
One of the first worthy chargers was the Nyko Charge Station, but the required controller back had a rubber grip on it that, while comfortable, makes the Wiimote incompatible with a lot of peripherals, and the traditional charging method requires users to remove the protective rubber jacket in order to dock, and featured an overly bright and painful blue LED light to signify controllers were charged. After about a year of use, they just quit working.
An increase from two controllers to four lead me to purchase a similar yet vastly superior Energizer charging dock that ditches a lot of problems I experienced with the Nyko. It doesn’t use gripped controller backs, so your controllers work with your favorite useless tennis racket peripherals, employed softer LED lights that don’t make your eyes bleed, and is all around more reliable. Still, though, you need to remove the protective jacket and the lights are still too bright. I’ve even had to get up at night to take the controllers off the dock because the LED lights were keeping me awake.
I am now on charger number three, as my Nyko Station has completely quit working. I was originally just going to buy another Energizer Station, as it has yet to give me any problems, but while browsing the shelves I stumble upon the Energizer Flat Panel Induction Charger. For those of you who don’t know what induction is, think of it as wireless charging.
It works by simply inserting to included controller pack into the back of your Wii Remote and laying the controller on the charging system. The battery pack is not padded and is completely flat, with no exposed copper leads on the underside. This means no more struggling to get the controller’s leads and charging station’s leads matched up perfectly, instead you simply lay the controller on the flat panel and it will be magnetically pulled to and secured where it needs to be.
The physical design is simple, yet very pleasing. The device is rugged and solid, designed with metal as opposed to cheap plastics. There is also no empty space inside, which helps keep it compact. The lights are placed at the top of the unit and, since it’s flat, don’t point into your eyeballs and burn your retina while they are on. They are very small anyway, so they emit very little light. They are both shaped like Wiimotes in jackets, with red signifying a charge is in progress and green means you’re ready to go.
The greatest thing about this charger is, like I’ve already said, the fact that it work with any variation of the controller. You can have the protective condom jacket on, a Nunchuck or Classic Controller plugged in, Wii Motion Plus inserted, or even have the controller inside of the Mario Kart Wheel or a useless tennis racket and it’ll still work. And with no use of copper leads, I don’t see this thing ever getting worn out and in need of replacement.
Final Words:
The Energizer Flat Panel Induction Charger may not be the cheapest charging solution available, costing about $30 bucks, but it is definitely the best I’ve experienced. Wireless charging makes for convenient and care-free use, the physical design is solid and aesthetically pleasing with no outstanding deficits or quirks, and with no copper leads needed for charging to work I doubt this thing will ever quit working. Like I said, this is easily the best Wiimote charger I’ve ever used. Highly recommended.
Pros
- Solid design
- Works with all variations of the Wiimote
- Wireless charging
- Works flawlessly
Cons
- A little more expensive than traditional chargers
Score: 9.0/10 (Outstanding)
I just might have to get on of these. I have the Nyko, and Im having the same problem as you with it not working. The contacts are cheaply assembled and wear out really easy.
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Where can I buy one of these?. What it’s the official name of the product?
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@ Flagstaad
I found mine at Walmart, and have only seen them there. There is also virtually no web presence for them for some reason. The Full name on the package is (take a deep breath) Energizer Power & Play for Wii Flat Panel 2X Induction Charging System.
I just bought a 4x flat panel recharger for my 3 Wii remotes — just like the 2x above except with 4 places for remotes. It was $49 at Walmart, but since it included 4 rechargable battery packs, I figured it wasn’t too much at all.
The one thing I don’t like is that you apparently HAVE to have the battery pack in a remote to charge it. If you simply lay the battery pack on the recharger alone, the red light flashes. So I have one battery pack I can’t use.
But I love that I don’t have to remove the motion plus adapters or the jackets every time I want to put it on the recharger. And the magnetic ‘attachment’ means that things stay in place if I touch the charger.
I have bought 2 of these and both times when I place the battery packs on my controllers on one of them all the lights just blink then it will read either player 1 or 2 then when u are playing with it, it will start blinking all the lights and stop working. It only does it with one controller if I switch the battery packs then it does it to the other controller. If anyone might know how to fix this problem I would be very greatful.
Also if I put regular batteries in the controller that is just blinking it works just fine.
Crystal,
I we have the same problem. Have a ticket into the company who works this product, PDP (not energizer as branded), and if they do not respond we are going to return/exchange.
Eup and Crystal,
Just bought the Energizer pad for two controllers. It looks and works great. However, one of the controllers will not stop blinking lights when it is not in play. Once I turn the system on and press A it works fine. The blinking lights are anoying
I live in Germany and the voltage here is 220 volts. Question: Will this product work with 220 volts?
Any help would be appreicated.
Hello guys,
I also wanted to have completely with pleasure the induction device where one can put 4 Wii Remotes on it, here in Germany this does not exist yet and I also do not know really when it will appear here. Where can I buy this then?
About Amazon.com I have already tried it, however, anyhow it does not work, I am registered with Amazon.de.
How does it look with the volt figures?
can somebody help me?
If so then answer please to the following mail:
usama_chaaban@web.de
This is a piece of SHIT and when I come on the website to get a number to call the office hours are closed! What The Fuck. When my children try to play with the wii controllers they automatically shut off!
I was also having the same problem that a number of people are complaining about. I thought about sending them back, but PDP wanted $8 (over 1/4 of what I paid just 3 months ago). So I removed the two screws that hold my batteries to the plastic controller back and replaced the green generic batteries with real Energizer NiMHs (2 AAAs). So far, they’ve been working (one month now).
*Please note, I do not have the “battery packs” pictured under “Includes” on the side of the box, but 2 standard batteries covered by a white sheild that is screwed to the controller back.
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It keeps disconnecting from the wii!
I found that my battery pack that would cause the red flashing light had one of the two batteries in it installed backwards. Check this if you are having problems.
Whenever I try to charge the batteries the red light starts flashing after about fifteen minutes. I tried opening the pack to see if something was wrong but I can’t find anything. Can anyone help?
Hey everybody,
I bought the wii charger about a week ago and yesterday was the first time I got to use it b/c the last bar of battery life on my disposable batteries that came with the system lasted a godly amount of time.
Anyway the process was simple enough to install the battery packs. The one thing I noticed was the repeated blinking blue lights on the wii remote. At first I thought it was a charging signal (which partly I think it is). When I first put the charger batteries in only two lights were blinking, but after I placed the remote on the charging dock for about 1 1/2 hours all the blue lights on remote were blinking.
As the night passed they were still blinking. It was kinda irritating…they blinked in this rhythm. I found this page and saw more reviews of the same problem. After reading other websites, watching youtube videos for reviews of the product and reading the manual time and time again I figured it out.
My theory is that the remote is blinking because the sink button on the battery pack is touching the sink button on the remote. If this happens, just take the battery pack out and carefully put the battery pack into place. If anything try again. It’ll work! 🙂
Ramon, thank you for finally clearing this up!
I’ve had the 4x Induction charger for about 2 weeks now and I’ve discovered that these battery packs do not work with nyko wand wii remotes, they also may not work with other 3rd party controllers but they seem to work perfectly fine with my 2 nintendo wii remotes. Note that the lights will flash as if it’s trying to connect but it will never connect and instead just turn off with the nyko remotes. If anyone is having trouble with 3rd party remotes I would suggest either taking them back to where you bought them and replacing them with nintendo branded remotes or selling them and using the money towards nintendo remotes.
Scratch my last post….I’m an idiot and didn’t read Ramons post. I got to figuring the same thing as Ramon did and at first I completely took the battery pack sync button off(you can just unscrew the plastic tab and take it off) and it worked fine on my nyko wand, so I bent the little tab ever so slightly and put it back on and I’ll be damned if the remote didn’t work like normal….I;m guessing the sync button on the nyko remote is just a hair taller than the nintendo ones thus is was pushing on the button everytime I put one of the battery packs in. If I had read Ramons post to begin with I wouldn’t have had to screw around thinking it was the remotes fault.
I have a question, i am looking to buy this from amazon, but i want to know if you can use the backs that come on the remote, or does it come with a differnt battery cover that you have to use. The reason I ask is because we have a red and black Wii remote and i really dont want to have to put white battery covers on the.
Jessie – I just purchased this and it comes with both white and black battery covers – 2 of each
I purchased this a few weeks back at Wal-Mart. I suspect that they have had a product revision to address the sync button problem (as well as black Wii-motes) because the battery pack isn’t anchored to the cover any more, and as christine mentioned now comes with two sets of covers. They no longer have the pass-through sync button which seems to be giving several of the above posters fits. You have to use their covers due to the shape of the pack, but you might be able to mod your original cover (if you have a red Wii-mote, for example) to make it fit.
Aside from an initial “error” the pad had in reading the charge in one of my controllers (caused, I suspect, by not lining the controller up correctly the first time I set it on the pad,) I have no issues to report at this time. Cool product.
I just bought my Wii tonight and I also bought this charging pad as well. I thought I would be clever and charge the batteries on the pad while I used the supplied disposable batteries. It was a good idea but didn’t work. The lights were flashing red and the instructions didn’t mention anything about flashing red lights. So I put the battery pack into my controller then placed it onto the pad and Presto!! A solid red light. So now I know they have to be in a controller to charge. I have yet to experience any problems with the blue flashing lights on the controllers but thanks to this page I know how to fix it if it should happen. Also 4 battery covers are supplied with the charging pad( 2 white and 2 black). Its neccessary to use these covers as the nintendo covers have ridges on the underside that won’t allow the covers to go on. The charging pad covers are void of these ridges.
I own a Energizer 4x flat panel induction charger for my Wii remotes. I have had it for a while, when it suddenly started flashing red lights and would not charge the controllers. Its not made by energizer, but by Performance Designed Products (www.PDP.com). However nothing on their website nor on the instructions does it say anything about flashing red lights. After searching online, and trying out different things. I was able to fix mine by moving it away from the Wii game station, and it is charging them again. Hope this helps.
I own an Energizer 2x flat panel induction charger for my Wii remotes. I had it for a little while, and it suddenly started flashing red and would not charge one of the controllers, but the other controller charged fine. I verified the battery pack was in the right way (on my controllers, you actually can’t install the battery pack backwards, it doesn’t fit).
Since I have had a defective controller once that did not play nice with rechargeable batteries, I decided to switch the battery packs between the 2 controllers.
I fully expected one of them (either the suspect controller or the suspect battery pack) to not work, but mysteriously, they now both work. So, before getting discouraged, swap batteries and controllers and hope for the best! 🙂
I too had this problem which I was able to fix.
I took the two screws out of the plastic housing so that I could remove the thbatterieses from its casing. After doing that, I did a close inspection of the batteries to find a slight build up of corrosion. I cleaned off the corrosion, put everything back together, and disco it works again.
I bought the induction charger, fully charged my controllers but when i tried to use them they wouldn’t work. The controllers blue lights flash as usual when pressing ‘A’ but instead of 1 staying on they all turn off again…am i suppose to sinc them somehow or am i missing something? I have read& re-read the manual & am doing everything correctly. Please help!!!
I was surfing around for a free video game download and found a site giving away the Red Nintendo Wii for Free. Some sort of Consumer Rewards deal. Not sure how it works exactly or who is paying for the games, maybe the manufacturer, or advertisers. IT took about 3 weeks to come in, I had actually forgotten that I submitted my email and address with them. But it works, Now The site is even more updated with XBOX Consoles, A Red Nintendo Wii, and more. The site is http://thefamilyexchange.com/free Im going back to get more free stuff.
i have a 4x panel. One battery pack no longer charged, only flashed red. Took it apart and found corrosion on the batteries and connectors. Cleaned it off and it’s holding a charge just fine now.
I just bought my Nintendo Wii, a spare Wii-mote, and this flat panel Wii-mote induction charger less than 4 hours ago. Being as I live about an hour’s drive from “civilization” where I purchased these items, and as a person who loves immediate gratification, returning it was not really an option when I saw one flashing red light and one solid red light after dropping my two Wii-motes onto the pad. It needed to be fixed, and I’m both industrious and technically inclined.
FLASHING RED LIGHT RESOLUTION:
I took out the obvious screw, and didn’t notice the screw hidden under the sticker. After finding and removing the hidden screw (thanks to someone else’s post), I pried the white shell open. Two green AAA-sized NiMH cells rated at 600mAH each were nestled within. I removed them both and inspected the AAA battery contacts and the metal connections for the batteries within the white plastic shell.
I found what appeared to be a small ammount of white colored adhesive on one metal battery “+” connector within the white shell. The other battery’s metal “+” connector did not have this adhesive. I cleaned the battery’s connector inside the shell and then inspected the “+” end of both batteries. As expected, I found the same adhesive on the “+” end of one battery, and I cleaned it off too. It took a fair ammount of effort to rub the adhesive off using my cotton t-shirt, but I got it all cleaned up.
Reinstalled the cells inside the white shell, snapped the two halves of the shell together, snugged up both screws, placed the battery pack back inside the Wii-mote, slid the rubber jacket back over the Wii-mote, and put the Wii-mote back onto the charger.
No more flashing red light.
I imagine this could be an issue for others, so I wanted to share my experience. It’s also nice to know that in the future, any AAA-sized NiMH cell would work as a replacement when these croak. Also of note, I did not take the electronics out of my plastic shell however I did spot a thermal sensor while I was inside there, likely to help monitor and regulate cell temperatures during charging. It was comforting to spot that safety feature!
I just bought this charger in the 4 Wiimote format used from Kijiji… The original batteries were not that great… When I remove them from the packs, tried to charge them individually with an NI MH charger I got here, some would just make my charger go nuts with a flashing red light… (Not a good sign)… I would put them back in, to no avail… So anyways, I decided I’d change the batteries in the packs with fresh NI MH… The Energiser charger was still temperamental… I thought what a serious piece of junk that is ! Until I tried the following… There seems to be a design flaw in the battery packs… Don’t know if they are all like mine out there, but I found that there is a battery that doesn’t make acceptable contact when installed in where it belongs… When holding the Wiimote vertically, and removing the pack to see the batteries in the pack, it’s the one on the left (the one with the positive side facing down towards the sync button)… What I did was simply put some foil between the battery and the contact plate at the positive side before putting the thing back together (I suppose it would also work on the negative side but haven’t tried)… Put back the remote on the charger and BANG!!! Bingo ! Working flawlessly ever since ! Would be happy to know if this was helpful to anybody !