An expert's guide to enjoying Pokémon Go without trashing your battery

Pokémon Go is a battery-killer. We all know this.

Like most people, when I started Pokémon Go, I would be walking around and having to turn my screen back on every minute or so when it timed out. To fix that frustration, I went into Settings, and under Display, I cranked my Screen timeout up to 10 minutes. Then my phone would stay on forever while I was listening to music, or looking at Twitter, so I was using the power button just as much.

But there is a better way! Actually there are a few better ways.

Now, like many games, Pokémon Go needs the screen to be on for it to register your distance walked for eggs, scan for nearby Pokémon, pilfer nearby Pokéstops for much-needed Great Balls (Curveballs are killing me), and generally play the game. Most similar games that need the screen to stay on longer use FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON in order to accomplish this, but Pokémon Go does not.

Well, that's not entirely accurate. They do offer one way to leave your screen on: Battery Saver. You turn your phone upside down and the screen dims to almost black, and the phone still vibrates when a Pokémon appears or you near a Pokéstop. The problem with Battery Saver right now is a bug that causes taps to not register after you lift the phone back up, meaning that if you get a buzz, filp your screen right-side-up and see a Pokémon you wanna catch, you might tap on it and have nothing happen. Then you have to close the app and restart it, and by the time you log back in chances are that Lapras is gone. Along with your dreams.

Battery Saver also doesn't help if you want to hold your screen up and check your direction as you walk between Lures and Gyms. So, if you want to keep your screen on longer while you're out hunting, we've got some solutions for you.

The Easy Ways

If you don't mind leaving your screen timeout high all the time, you can go into Settings. Under Display (or Display and Notification on some devices), you can change the Screen timeout to 1 hour, or Never, should that be an option on your particular phone. If you've got Developer options turned on, you can also use the Stay awake feature to keep the screen on while charging. But if you get tired of having it cranked up all the time like I did, we have some other solutions for you.

There are a variety of settings widgets you can place on your home screen to manually toggle before and after gaming sessions like Power Toggles or HD widgets. You can add one of the customizable widgets to your home screen, maybe right next to the shortcut for Pokémon Go, then simply hit the toggle before you open the app. Then hit the toggle again once you leave the app.

There are also dedicated apps like Wakey that will keep the screen on in certain designated apps, though you will need to get the $1.49 Premium upgrade. Wakey also has features to crank up your brightness while it's enabled and to keep your screen on while you're charging, which is something a lot of us end up needing to do while we're hunting.

Speaking of charging while on the hunt, check out some of our favorites! And if you're going to be playing plugged in, you might want to rotate the screen to allow you a better grip while you play. Well, Pokémon Go is optimized for portrait, but using a rotation app like Ultimate Rotation Control, you can rotate your phone to the side — or better yet, rotate the device 180 degrees and keep on playing in portrait.

The hard way

But if you're not afraid to get technical, I recommend Tasker. For those unfamiliar with the handy app, it's a lot like IFTTT, if IFTTT could do more than one thing at a time and do way more things than it does. Tasker is an app where you can program tasks and then trigger them manually or have the phone execute them automatically with Profiles based on a number of factors or contexts. If you haven't played with it before, it's quite fun once you get over the learning curve. Plus, making a profile to keep the screen on during Pokémon Go is a great way to introduce you to the app as it's a nice, easy recipe.

1. Open Tasker.
2. In the Profiles tab, tap the New Profile button (+) in the bottom right corner.
3. Select App for a profile based on when an app is open.
4. Scroll down and select Pokémon Go
5. Finish your app selection by tapping the Tasker icon in the top left corner.
6. Add a task to your profile so that when your profile activates it does something. We'll add a New Task as we haven't made any tasks before.
7. Tap the New Action button (+) in the bottom center of the screen. Title the task whatever you want.
8. Using the search bar, find and select Display Timeout.
9. Increase the time for the Display Timeout to the desired length. I prefer 30 minutes, but make it as short or long as you need. Just try to make it a timeout length that you could find if you manually set the timeout in the Settings app.
10. Finish the action and go back by tapping the Tasker icon in the top left corner.
11. Finish the task and go back by tapping the Tasker icon in the top left corner again.
12. Long-press the task task we just added to the profile. We're going to Add Exit Task so that we change our screen timeout back a decent length whenever we leave the app.
13. Select New Task to create our exit task. Title it whatever you want.
14. Tap the New Action button (+) in the bottom center of the screen. Title the task whatever you want.
15. Using the search bar, find and select Display Timeout.
16. Set the time for the Display Timeout to the desired length. I prefer 30 seconds, but make it as short or long as you prefer. Just try to make it a timeout length that you could find if you manually set the timeout in the Settings app.
17. Finish the action and go back by tapping the Tasker icon in the top left corner.
18. Finish the task and go back by tapping the Tasker icon in the top left corner again.
19. Exit the app to ensure your changes take.

You could add several other settings to this profile as well, such as turning on Priority mode to limit distractions or cranking up the brightness if you typically hunt in the afternoon sun. You could even have two Pokémon Go profiles that activate based on the time of day, one brightening and one dimming the screen. Use a time-based context in addition to the app context used in the basic profile.

So, what settings and apps do you use while you're out hunting Pokémon and hatching eggs? Share your setup in the comments below, and as always, happy hunting!

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