WiiConnect24

With all the stuff flying around at the moment about whether or not Nintendo can upgrade you automatically, or not as some are saying, I thought that the WiiConnect24 would be a good topic for discussion as, as far as I know, this would be the portal that would be used.

I understand that It enables your Wii to remain connected to the Internet while the console is in stand-by. For example, a friend might be able to visit another player's Wii town and leave that player messages in Animal Crossing without him or her being present. WiiConnect24 is sometimes confused with Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, which is used to provide online gameplay over Nintendo's servers. Online gameplay titles for the Wii are able to make use of both the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service and WiiConnect24.

My questions are :
* If you leave it in standby mode, what are the benefits of doing so and what are the pitfalls?
* Why have it on at all - does anybody really use it?
* What system version are you "safe" to leave it on. For example if you are in 3.4 are you exposed to Nintendo or if you are in 3.3 or lower, are you safe?
* What are peoples experience of using it and what do you use it for?

Sorry if this topic is buried in other threads, but I just thought with the current Nov 08 update that it would be useful

1.
Benefits
* Receive mails/alerts even when you're not about.
* Send/Recieve Mii's to your friends

Pitfalls
* If you're Wii is configured as such, you'll have a blue glow through the room until you switch the Wii on.
* Increased power usage on the Wii in standby
* Will periodically use your internet connection (only really affects people on dialup, or those who want it to disconnect with no usage)

2. Some banners use WC24 to display extra icons, like Mario Kart, to inform you that there are competitions going on.

3. I would be interesting in having a look at the WC24 database from a v3.4 system to see if there are any new references in there, if anybody feels like sending me theirs. (/shared2/wc24/nwc24dl.bin should be sufficient, You can use [www.wiibrew.org] to copy the file off your Wii). If you want to dissect your own, I've put some details here - [forum.wiibrew.org]

4. I've never had any problems, and have no issues with leaving it on.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2008 12:33PM by whodares.

So WiiConnect24 doesn't allow Nintendo to access the contents of say your message board (where they'll see HB activity) or allow them to say scan the contents of your SD card?

Quote
col70
With all the stuff flying around at the moment about whether or not Nintendo can upgrade you automatically, or not as some are saying, I thought that the WiiConnect24 would be a good topic for discussion as, as far as I know, this would be the portal that would be used.

I understand that It enables your Wii to remain connected to the Internet while the console is in stand-by. For example, a friend might be able to visit another player's Wii town and leave that player messages in Animal Crossing without him or her being present.

We do not even know whether or not WC24 will be used for forced automatic updates.

WC24 is the name for the whole service. Being connected while your wii is in standbye is just a part of it.
It's just a glorified Email service, isn't it? It even uses the same protocols.
AFAIK there is no realtime communication between the Wii and Nintendo. The Wii polls its messagebox every 15 minutes (IIRC my router logs showed, that the Wii only used Wi-Fi every 15 minutes) and perhaps doesn't even download new messages before it is turned on.

By the way: there already is a whole section on this board dedicated to WC24: [forum.wiibrew.org]

Quote
col70
So WiiConnect24 doesn't allow Nintendo to access the contents of say your message board (where they'll see HB activity) or allow them to say scan the contents of your SD card?

No. And even if they see homebrew activity on your Wii - that wouldn't harm anyone.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2008 02:57PM by daniel_c_w.