Pokemon Go Has A New Nearby Tracker In Testing Now

Pokemon Go launched with a system to track what Pokemon are nearby your location, but that system broke shortly after the game launched. This is in part what led to the hoards of third party tracking services such as Pokevision that have since been banned. The original nearby system showed footprints on the images with three meaning far away and one meaning close.

Not long after launch when that system broke all Pokemon showed three footprints even if you were standing next to it. The developers of the game have now announced an updated nearby tracking system and it is rolling out now, but is in testing with only a subset of users. When players click on the "Nearby" drawer, they will see two sections labeled nearby and sightings.

The Pokemon listed as nearby are ones that are close to Pokestops and users can tap them for the map to zoom out and give an overhead view so you can see which Pokestop you need to head towards. Reports indicate that the Pokemon found using nearby are often within a block of a Pokestop. The sightings section has images of Pokemon with grass behind them.

These sightings section characters are in the wild and aren't near a Pokestop meaning the user will need to hunt them down without any guidance. There is no guidance from the app to help locate Pokemon in the guidance section. If one of the Pokemon despawns before you reach it, it will disappear from the nearby or sightings drawer. If you wander to far from a Pokemon it will also disappear from that drawer. The subset of users that are testing this new feature are apparently located in San Francisco right now with no word when or if it will roll out to other users of the game.

SOURCE: TechCrunch