How to get Umbreon and Espeon in Pokemon GO
Eevee now has five different forms into which it can evolve in Pokemon GO. Today we're reporting on every one of the multiple ways in which Eevee is able to evolve in Pokemon GO as of the 19th of February, 2017. That was just after the big push to Gen 2 for Pokemon GO, starting with Pokemon GO APK v. 0.57.2 and Niantic's announcement of 80+ new Pokemon, including Umbreon and Espeon.
Naming Trick
Two names can be used to evolve Eevee into the two Generation 2 evolved forms Umbreon and Espeon. These two are quite similar to the original three, all of which roll with nicknames taken from Pokemon TV show. The newest couple of Pokemon take their names from the 183rd episode of the Pokemon Anime called "Trouble's Brewing."
In this episode, we find trainer Sakura and trainer Tamao. These trainers use Espeon and Umbreon, respectively. Three other trainers are seen in this episode, one each for the first three evolutions of Eevee. These first three evolutions appeared earlier in the series, however, so their names are attached to their own nicknames from that earlier episode.
• Jolteon: Sparky
• Vaporeon: Rainer
• Flareon: Pyro
• Espeon: Sakura
• Umbreon: Tamao
To use a name to evolve Eevee, the user must open the Eevee they wish to evolve and change it's nickname to Sparky, Rainer, Pyro, Sakura, or Tamao. IMPORTANT: Make sure there's no extra space added to the name automatically by your phone. A space after the name will wreck this process.
Evolve an Eevee with one of the names above and it'll turn in to its associated evolved form. Each of these names work for a single user one single time. After that, these names will have no effect.
The Buddy Trick
The original Pokemon games with Espeon and Umbreon – Pokemon Silver and Gold – required that Eevee have its Friendship meter raised before evolving. If it had a requisite amount of Friendship, and it was evolved at night, it'd turn to Umbreon. if the same was done during the day, the useer would find that Eevee had evolved into Espeon.
There's a similar trick in Pokemon GO, having to do with walking an Eevee buddy. If a user walks an Eevee 10km as a Buddy Pokemon, then evolves that Eevee during the day, it'll turn to Espeon. At night, that Pokemon will evolve into Umbreon.
At the time at which this article is first published, there is no limit to the amount of Eevee that can be evolved into Umbreon or Espeon in this way. Which is good, because neither Espeon nor Umbreon are able to be found or caught in the wild. They literally do not exist in Pokemon go outside of the two evolution processes (or possibly random Eevee evolution) in this game.
No Espeon or Umbreon in the Wild
Togetic cannot be found in the wild – instead, the only way a player can get Togetic is to evolve Togepi, which comes only from Pokemon eggs. SEE: How to get Special Items in Pokemon GO
Pichu, Cleffa, Igglybuff, Togepi, Smoochum, Elekid, and Magby are all Baby Pokemon and can only be found in Pokemon eggs. Similarly, Espeon and Umbreon cannot be found in the wild – they must be evolved from Eevee.
Niantic hides the spawn rates and locations and all such bits on the server side of their code. What we can see from our side of the code is the removal of a "Base Capture Rate" from both Espeon and Umbreon between the last two versions of the game. To us, this means that while both Espeon and Umbreon remain in the game, they cannot be caught in the wild – and likely cannot be found there, either.
How do I get Espeon or Umbreon?
Above we've gone through the two ways in which an Espeon can be gotten and the two ways in which an Umbreon can be gotten. Both are available in Pokemon GO now, but neither can be found in any region, in any biome, in any Lured Pokestop in the world. They can only be found evolved from Eevee. Now find those Eevee and get to moving!