Ready for more? We’re back with 5 tech tips for the South African Pokemon Go trainer to make the most of the game.
Have you been playing Pokemon Go? Niantec’s latest title is taking the world by storm, and playing the game in South Africa – where data and electricity to charge a phone are both in short supply – can be challenging. Luckily, we’ve got 5 tech tips to keep you covered while you’re out there catching Pokemon.
Whether you face a long commute to work or school, have limited amounts of data or have a smartphone with a minuscule battery life, we’ve got you sorted.
Read: New research shows the amazing virality driving Pokemon Go
Ready? Let’s dive in!
Train stations are great Pokemon Go hubs
Train stations are often a source of frustration in South Africa. Whether your means of commute is late, early, or just plain nonexistent, holding up for a train often nets a long and frustrating waiting time.
Thankfully, it turns out many train stations serve as in-game locations and serve an abundance of Pokemon to capture.
While waiting at a train station, see if your stop is registered as either a Pokestop or Gym to get in on the action, and see if you can’t capture any nearby Pokemon.
Cache Google Maps to save data
Data is in short supply in South Africa, and we’re willing to bet that more than a few of us will be sizeably in debt to our mobile network operator this month.
Much of the data Pokemon Go consumes is a result of two features; the first is streaming in-game location data from servers (such as Pokestops and Gyms), while the second is tracking your present location through GPS.
For the latter, there’s an easy fix if you plan on staying in the same region of the country. Head on over to Google Maps, and download a cached map of your immediate location.
When you next log in to Pokemon Go, the game will instead run off of the cached map you’ve saved instead of running off Google Maps through the web. Through doing this, you can substantially reduce the amount of data required to play the game while out and about in South Africa.
Turn on Battery Saver in-game to play for longer
Many new smartphones are coming equipped with a Battery Saver feature, and it is true that enabling this in the Settings menu of your device will net you a few more minutes or hours of play time. While that’s great, it comes with the consequence of a faster screen-off time and reduced GPS accuracy.
If you don’t want to live with those consequences, you can instead enable Pokemon Go’s very own battery saver.
Head to the in-game Settings menu, where the second last menu item will read ‘Battery Saver’. Enable this to achieve greater play time while out and about.
Need to record some walking? Use a turntable
Some elements of Pokemon Go require your smartphone to measure the distance you’ve travelled by walking; one of the most prominent features is the ‘kilometers-travelled’ calculation after which eggs hatch following 2, 5, or 10-kilometre journeys.
Most of us, however, have a desk job which binds us to one location for a sizeable amount of time. Thankfully, there’s an easy solution.
If you happen to have a turntable, lazy susan or (more daringly) a ceiling fan, you can equip your smartphone to the device and spin it around to simulate the motion of walking. While it may take a while longer to hatch an egg, this is a useful method if you happen to be bound to a desk.
The larger the circumference of the rotation (think of a turntable versus a ceiling fan) equals a larger ‘distance walked’ bonus. Please make sure you adequately secure your device if you plan to do this, as we won’t take any responsibility if your smartphone happens to take a one-way journey across the globe.
Use your commute to hatch Pokemon eggs
While some of us are glued to our desks for most of the day, others spend long hours in frustrating commutes. Thankfully, slow moving traffic or stop/start train commutes make for a great way to net even more distance.
Use your daily commute with the app open to add even more distance to your daily grind. The game refuses to calculate any movement registered faster than what a human being could feasibly walk or cycle through, so play it carefully.
Read: Pokemon Go‘s first location partnership could be with McDonald‘s
Have a suggestion?
Have you encountered a great way to conquer Pokemon Go? Let us know your thoughts, opinions and hot tips in the comments below, and be sure to read our general Pokemon Go tips and tricks to become a pro!
