Tuesday Tips: Tracking via the New Sightings Feature

[inkstone]

I posted this in the comments of cyphomandra's post about the latest update, but then I realized it'd be more helpful to post it directly to the community so everyone would see it!

TL;DR - Niantic has begun work on the tracker. It is not in its final form. Some people are in a beta. Everyone should be seeing a faster refresh rate with no phantom pokémon lingering around despite having despawned or fallen out of range.

For those of us who remember the original functional tracker, no, it doesn't have pawprints. But with the accurate refresh rate (~15 sec IIRC), you can actually track pokémon now. If a pokémon shows up in your Sightings tab, you're within its 200m radius. Watching the pokémon appear and disappear from your Sightings tab will allow you to triangulate.

This post on Reddit breaks down the process: https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/4wvmgv/tracking_pokemon_using_sightings/

Happy hunting!

Comments

[elfin]

Oh, that's really useful. Thanks for posting it!

[recessional]

So thus far as far as we know the grass means nothing?

[inkstone]

Yes, as far as people have determined, it's just a cosmetic feature. It might morph into something else in the future but as of right now, it's for decorative purposes.

[recessional]

Actually I found this: https://twitter.com/PokeSteal/status/762932533453524992

It looks like the full functionality will be linking nearbys to applicable pokestops to add further info, whereas the grass just means "I dunno, it's somewhere around you, go look."

[inkstone]

That tweet really should have linked the subreddit thread because it explains the updated Nearby feature more clearly: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/4wu2ky/my_tracker_just_updated_with_an_enhanced_nearby/d69yi48

I guess I still consider the grass to be cosmetic because the Nearby label says the pokemon is within 200m of a PokeStop while the Sightings label says the pokemon is within 200m of you. I've seen some theories that due to the size of the grass illustration, they might animate it in the future so that it moves if you're going in the right direction. That is the one thing that the Sightings tracker would really benefit from--a directional hint. That would make it on par with the Nearby tracker, which links pokemon to an actual location on the map.

[lizbee]

YESSSSSSS

I hope there's still a Pikachu in Edinburgh Gardens, we have a Pokepicnic to plan.

[dickgrayson]

Thank you!

[jack]

Thank you for linking to that! That's incredibly helpful. It's basically what I was doing, but I wasn't sure it was best.

I still find it really frustrating, since it seems like an occasion delay in updating, or a slightly-premature removal from sighting when it gets into detection range, or *something* makes it a lot less reliable. But I can *often* track down a pokemon.