What's the Updated Dolphin Bar Setup Reccomendation?

[Shroom]

I just bought a dolphinbar, which apparently is 6 year old advice. Previously, I was using my bluetooth adapter (ASUS USB-BT500), but after moving, I wanted to stop using my Wii sensor bar, and people said a dolpinbar was better, so I bought it. I was using the emulated Wii adapter settings with 4 controllers. I'm pretty sure they're all OEM. Now I'm setting up my dolphin bar and I'm wondering if I should use passthrough or emulate. I found this thread saying that I should use passthrough but it's not clear if this custom firmware is now on all dolphin bars: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/thread-63...olphin+bar.

Should I go back to my old method of connecting controllers? Do I use my original adapter or start using the dolphin bar? Do I use emulated or passthrough? I'm only using mode 4 to connect controllers.

I would like to be able to connect 3rd party controllers. That said, using passthrough mode means I can't use playstation and wii controllers at the same time.

My understanding is that the dolphin bar has the original Wii BT adapter, so by using it, I can have the same BT passthrough experience while using the emulated settings, meaning I can combine using my PS5 controller and my Wii controller. Is that correct?

[AnyOldName3]

That thread's got custom firmware that basically lets the DolphinBar work like a regular boring sensor bar, i.e. the LEDs will stay on even when there's no Wiimote connected. That means that if you have a separate adapter for doing passthrough (which the DolphinBar doesn't work with), you can continue using the DolphinBar as a sensor bar, stopping you from needing to buy a plain sensor bar.

That's kind of the opposite of your situation. You already had a plain sensor bar, so haven't gained anything by buying the DolphinBar if you use the firmware from that thread.

[Shroom]

Ok that makes sense. I no longer have a plain sensor bar since it was attached to my old and now practically non-functional Wii. Would I be better off just getting a plain sensor bar and returning this or should I use the dolphin bar?

[mbc07]

If you already own a Dolphin Bar, I'd stick to it. You won't need its Bluetooth functionalities with your current setup but they might come in handy in future, or when using other emulators (e.g. Cemu). The experimental firmware AnyOldName3 mentioned can only be applied to the second revision of the Dolphin Bar (you can identify that by checking if you have two on/off switches at the back of the bar -- the first revision has only one and hasn't been sold anymore for years AFAIK), but other than that you should be good to go...