It’s no secret that Pokémon Go is probably one of the most demanding phone games ever released. Chances are, if you’re playing it, your battery will go down about 1% every 2 minutes, roughly. Unless you’ve got a really, really good phone, or rather, battery. that is.
And then there’s the problem of data to consider. You’ll be using far more data than on a typical journey outside, so unless you’ve got unlimited data, that’s a rather big problem. What if you could fix it, though?
Download the map of your area.
The thing is, the main reason Pokémon Go uses so much battery is actually quite simple, and easy to solve. Pokémon Go uses the Google Map API – and if you download the map of your city for offline use, then you’ll save a lot of battery consumption and data charges. Follow the steps below – and thank me later.
- Sign into Google Maps, on your iPhone or Android phone.
- Perform a search for your city. If you live in Boston, search for “Boston”, and so on. Simple.
- Tap on the white bar at the bottom of the screen – see below.
- Tap on download.
- Tap on download again – Google is just showing you the area you’re agreeing to download.
- That’s it! Now wait on it downloading, and afterwards, you’ll be saving a tonne of battery time and data when playing Pokémon Go. Keep reading though – there’s more.
So you’ve downloaded the map of your area. What else? Here are a few things you should consider if you want to maximize battery time, and minimize data usage.
Turn on battery saver.
Pokémon Go actually has an in-game battery saver option. It’s extremely helpful, and its drawbacks are negligible. Don’t worry – I tested it, and I’m really fussy about this sort of thing. Basically, battery saver will dim your brightness, and decrease the refresh rate when using the in-game map. I’m not too sure if the fact that you’ve downloaded the map will render battery saver useless, but there’s nothing to lose by turning it on. And that brightness decrease should help too, at least a little. So – turn on battery saver. Follow the steps below, if you’re not sure how.
- Launch the game. Obviously.
- Tap on the Poké Ball at the bottom of the screen.
- Tap on settings in the top right.
- Fourth one down – “battery saver”. Enable that, and you’re done.
Turn the screen brightness down.
This is a really bad idea if it’s a sunny day out, because you’ll find it incredibly hard to actually see what’s on the screen – but if it’s not, or if you just have good eyesight (like, really good eyesight), then you’ll be fine.
Just turn down your brightness as you usually would. If it’s too bright outside to see the screen, just put it as dim as you can. Don’t put it on auto, though, because that’ll likely just make it brighter than necessary.
Disable AR mode.
You’ll need to find a Pokémon to do this, if you haven’t already done it. Once you’ve found one, and you enter AR mode, check the top right – you should see “camera”, with a slider to the right. Slide that to the left to disable augmented reality mode. Sucks, I know, but if you really are desperate to save battery, then it’ll help. Plus, it’s actually far easier to catch Pokémon without using the AR mode.
Hey, think yourself lucky you can actually use augmented reality mode – if your phone doesn’t have a gyroscope, you’re literally unable to use it, at all.
Close the game whilst travelling between locations.
You don’t need to have the game open non-stop. If you see a gym, a Poké Stop, whatever, then close your phone on the way there. There’s nothing to gain by keeping it open, unless you spot a Pokémon on the way there, or something like that. And if you’re going faster than walking and running speeds, the distance traveled doesn’t count toward any incubating eggs.
Close all your other apps – and invest in a battery saver.
This goes without saying, really, but if you have a bunch of apps running at the same time as playing, your battery won’t be thanking you. Try investing in a battery saver app, like battery doctor – available for Android phones and iPhone. It’ll stop background apps from draining your power, and should help a little.
Buy a portable charger.
Obviously, this one costs money – but hey, it’s for the greater good! Sort of. There are tons of nifty portable chargers on Amazon, and you’ll almost certainly be able to get a really good deal on at least one of them. This is Amazon we’re talking about.