How To Read RSS Feeds On Your Wii

(Please forgive the ugly formatting here. I'm having trouble getting this into my WordPress setup so for the sake of expediency, I just decided to HTMLize this as-is and worry about making it pretty later.)

Well, the News Channel is great and all, but quite frankly it's a little lacking. Specifically, the Technology section. Come on, there's lots of news in the tech world-- where's Slashdot? Where's Digg? Well, with this little hack, it's possible to read RSS feeds on your Wii. You'll even be notified when new ones come in-- the glowing disc tray will let you know!

What You Need (besides a Wii)

First, you'll need an email address that can be accessed via SMTP. If you have your mail through your own server, that's best; I don't immediately know if Gmail or Yahoo permit SMTP access. I'll look into it for later. Next, you'll need an always-on computer with a connection to the Internet. I tested this on my media center comp, a Mac Mini that sees maybe an hour or two of daily usage and sits idle the rest of the time. You can use this on any OS capable of running Python-- which, of course, leads me to the next requirement. You need to be able to run Python 2.x. This is because the hack relies heavily on rss2email, a free script to convert an RSS feed to emails.

Step 1. Register Your Email With Your Wii

Create a dedicated email address for your RSS feeds. If you're running Gmail or Yahoo, you could create a new address if you want to, or just use your existing address. Whichever address you choose, remember it. Now start your Wii and go to your Address Book (envelope icon in the lower right hand corner, then the memo icon in the lower left, then the right-hand option). Select "Register", then "Register Other" (the cell phone/computer icon). You'll be prompted for an email address; type in the address you set up. Confirm that you want to add that, and name it something like "RSS Feeds". You can even add a Mii if you want, but don't bother. Then, go to your email account and reply to the message that was sent. You should get a message on your Wii with your reply; if you did, you're done with Step 1.

Step 2. Install and configure rss2email

The message that you replied to came from a very specific email address @wii.com. That address is the key to the whole process; it's "w", followed by your Wii Code, then "@wii.com". It's a direct address to your Wii. Now, we just need to get the RSS content to it. Download rss2email from the link given above; you'll download four or five files (if you're running on Linux/OSX, make sure you download or create your own config.py file, unless you want to edit rss2email.py yourself, which I wouldn't do). If you're on Windows or OSX, you may also need to download Python 2. (Some distributions of Linux come with Python out of the box; OSX preinstalls a barebones version of Python, but since RSS relies on XML you'll have to install the full version anyway. Also, some BitTorrent clients install Python for you. I recommend installing Python on Windows or OSX boxes anyway, just to be sure.) In the config.py file, you'll want to edit the following settings (or add them to the end of the file if they don't exist):
SMTP_SERVER - Set this to your outgoing SMTP server.
AUTH_REQUIRED - This is probably going to be set to 1.
SMTP_USER - The username for the email address you set up in step 1 (NOT the @wii.com address).
SMTP_PASS - The password for the email address you set up in step 1 (NOT the @wii.com address).
DEFAULT_FROM - Set this to the email address you set up in Step 1 (NOT the @wii.com address); this is how the Wii knows to accept the message.
HTML_MAIL - Set this to 0. HTML mail is not good for the Wii (it looks crappy because the message reader doesn't understand it) and it might get rejected if there's enough of it.
DATE_HEADER - Set this to 0. Messages will come in on the day they're picked up and sent to the Wii; the less scrolling you have to do, the better, right?

Step 3. Collect Feeds For r2e To Forward

Now, open up a command line and run the following commands (Windows users, don't put the "./" in front of r2e):
./r2e new [your Wii's email address]
Substitute your w[number]@wii.com email address where appropriate. This sets up a new database for r2e to store feeds in.
./r2e add [feed address]
Substitute the URL of your feed where appropriate. This registers the feed with r2e as one to watch. Repeat as needed.

When you've set up all the feeds you want, run this:
./r2e run --no-send
The --no-send option prevents all of the current feed stories from being blasted to your Wii at once, which could trip spam filter alarms.

Step 4. Automate r2e

All right, r2e has been configured. Now we need to automate it! On Linux/OSX, this means a cron job-- you can see how to use cron here (OSX users, don't fret; for the purposes of cron, BSD = OSX). On Windows, this means Task Scheduler-- the instructions for Windows are on the rss2email Getting Started page, so there's no need to list them here. Whichever way you automate it, make sure that the "run" parameter is on the command line and that the "--no-send" parameter is NOT. I would probably have the tool run once every thirty minutes.

Step 5. Test It!

We're almost done. Testing the feed forwarding can be hard, or it can be easy. If you don't control any of the feeds that you added, then you just have to wait for one of them to update and check to see if your Wii receives the message. If you DO control one of the feeds-- like, say, your own blog-- you can simply update that feed with a new article, then run the "./r2e run" command directly (after a few moments, to ensure that the RSS file updates itself). The effects are most dramatic if your Wii is turned off (or, more specifically, in WiiConnect24 standby mode)-- the disc tray will light up blue. It might take up to ten minutes for the Wii to check its mailbox.

Troubleshooting

This is pretty straightforward, but invariably people will run into trouble. Since this hack is completely unsupported, I don't have to answer the "HOW I MINE FOR FISH?" type of questions (and I won't answer anything egregiously stupid), but here's a few common problems that might come up.

If you're having trouble sending the emails, make sure that the Wii address is typed correctly, that the Wii has the outgoing email address registered correctly, and that you've replied to the registration request email.
If you're sending the emails, but not receiving them, make sure of all of the above and that the Wii has WiiConnect24 turned on.
If your Wii only seems to pick up messages while you're playing a game, or if the disc tray only glows after you shut the machine down, make sure you have WiiConnect24 turned on.
If you can't receive messages because your Wii's memory is full, delete old messages.

Disclaimer

This technique is completely speculative and completely unsupported. I've tested it on my machines, and it works; your mileage may vary. I am not and will not be held responsible for any damages done to either your computer, your Wii, your My Nintendo account, or pretty much anything as a result of your use of these instructions. If Nintendo changes the way the Wii mail system works, that's not my fault. If Nintendo starts blocking mass messages to Wiis, that's not my fault. If you lose all your saved data, that's not my fault. Basically, use this at your own risk.

...but have fun!

Please visit my main page. Also, please visit Netjak; I'm a staff writer there.
John "TheFurryOne" Zeitler
January 29, 2007