If you haven’t heard the news already, Pokémon Go is a pretty popular game. Leaving your house, neighborhood, or even city to look for rare Pokémon and gym leaders to defeat is addictive and loads of fun, but the game’s ability to drain your phone’s battery in just a few hours can keep you from staying out for extended periods of time.
A “known issues” page on developer Niantic’s website, spotted by Polygon, says that “some devices may experience battery drain while playing Pokémon Go for prolonged periods of time. We are working on a solution.”
For right now, your best option for keeping your phone alive is to turn on the power-saving option in the game’s settings. Doing this will turn your display off when it’s upside down — as it would be in your pocket — but allows it to still alert you when a Pokémon is nearby.
Other known issues with the game include incorrect or missing PokéCoins in players’ accounts, reset trainer progress, distorted audio, and incorrect locations. The latter can of course be improved by connection to Wi-Fi, but since the game requires you to walk long distances to track down Squirtles and Nidorans, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll lose the connection at some point.
The issue with trainer progress actually isn’t a problem with the game itself; if you accidentally created an account with both Google and Pokémon Trainer Club, you’ll need to log out and log back in with your original account.
What have been your favorite experiences with Pokémon Go so far? In just a few days, we’ve taken over gyms and left the house in the middle of the night to catch a Pokémon down the street. And if Niantic’s battery fix works as planned, we won’t have to keep our phones charging whenever we’re not playing, either.
