Wii Charge Station

I've had this about a year now - it does a good job of saving me money with recharging the batteris, and the light indicator tells you if it is charging and changes color when the charge is complete.

The only drawback I have is with the wrist straps on the hand held units - they get in the way of immediately placing the units on the charger and have to be placed "exactly" right or the unit won't charge; that took some getting used to but doesn't detract from the value of the charging station.

I bought this charger at Wii launch. It work well for a while but now it seems to have problems charging even new replacement batteries. It's disappointing that it didn't last longer. I'm considering trying some other way of keeping my Wiimotes charged now.

I'm a person who likes to reuse things when possible to save money and to be kinder to the environment, so rechargeables are a must. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this flimsy, unreliable product.

At first glance, the product is impressive. It comes with a charging cradle that can charge two Wiimotes at a time, two rechargeable batteries and two rubber-coated covers for the backs of the Wiimotes. The special covers have square holes in them so that the small bit of metal from the battery can come in contact with the part of the charging station that charges the batteries. This is highly convenient, and the length of time it takes to recharge the batteries is reasonable. There's also the added bonus of color-coded LEDs indicating when the batteries have finished charging (blue means juicing up and green means fully juiced). All in all, it's a standard, seemingly well-designed piece of equipment.

However, I have experienced problems with it. I got this charging station from Best Buy years ago, and one of the batteries was defective right out of the box. Nyko was understanding and sent me a new battery in exchange for the one that didn't function. Yet somehow, both batteries ended up completely non-functional over a period of time (I'd estimate a year or so, if even that). I tried emailing Nyko to tell them that both batteries broke, but I never received a response. So I just gave up and went back to disposable batteries for the time being since I was using my Xbox 360 more than my Wii.

I'm not saying that you will necessarily have the same issues with this product, but I wouldn't be willing to take the risk again, even if it were cheaper. I recently decided to buy a model from a different company for $12, including shipping, and I'd be very surprised if it ended up disappointing me in the way Nyko's charging station did.

The batteries last for about 3-4 months and then need replacement. Look elsewhere. Do not buy this junk.

Don't take this the wrong way, for this is NOT about the battery performance! The batteries actually work fine and last a reasonable amount of time. It's the charger itself that I hate. For starters, I would like to praise Nyko for its accomplishment- they created the first device I've seen that refuses to do its own job! When I insert the remote, the light will turn blue for a moment and then instantly turns green indicating that it is done. But when I used the remote the very first time it did that, I realized that it did NOT charge the battery at all!
I found that you have to insert the remote multiple times and actually supervise the damn thing for a whole minute to ensure that it's charging properly. There are times when the device doesn't acknowledge the remote at all. I have better things to do than supervise a lazy battery charger!!! But now that we have Duracell rechargeables, we no longer need the piece of $#@% and now if I could, I would sell this on ebay. But as I'm underaged, I may have to do the next best thing and put this piece of garbage in a junk heap. WHERE IT BELONGS!!! So long story short, don't even think about buying this for your Wii!