Pokemon Go
‘s latest update is breathing new, much-needed life into the app that became a pop culture phenomenon last year, but now one of the most crucial game mechanics is being beaten by the limitation of smartphone hardware. Many players are finding that in order to hatch their Pokemon eggs they don’t even need to walk, and racking up in-game steps has become so easy that you can pretty much do it right from your couch.
The trick to hatching an egg without moving is all about your phone’s GPS. Pokemon Go players have started noticing that the GPS tracking in the game is not only extremely inaccurate (as it’s always been), but that it might actually be getting worse. This leads to what players are calling “GPS drift,” which is essentially the game getting inaccurate data from your phone’s GPS system and then translating it into in-game movement.
There’s always been a small amount of GPS drift in the game, but now players are discovering that it’s somehow worse than ever. A Reddit thread is packed with players boasting about how easy it is to hatch eggs thanks to the app’s erratic location tracking. “The GPS can’t find me too well in my work building,” one Reddit user explains. “I sit at a different desk every day and some spots are great for walking me in circles.”
What’s even more interesting is that it seems that some phones are better at achieving GPS drift than others, and many of those who say they’ve been using the trick to hatch eggs are using Samsung devices. Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge make up the majority, though there is at least one player noting that their iPhone 5 works pretty well for racking up fake steps, too.
It’s unclear if Niantic’s recent update tweaked the GPS step tracking at all, or if it’s simply a surge of new players realizing they can trick the system, but there’s lots of eggs being hatched at the moment, and not that many steps being taken.
