Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Pokemon GO has pretty much changed my life. I work in Manhattan, and since the game launched, between my morning commute, my evening commute, and lunch I find myself walking between 5-7 miles a day now, getting a great workout and saving $5.50 in subway fare to boot. The walk used to be grueling and boring, but nowadays it goes by much faster with that nice dopamine hit every time I catch a new Pokemon or spin an especially lucrative PokeStop. Still, playing the game in the crowded City can get a bit tough. I try my hardest not to be one of “those people”–those people who plant their faces in their phones playing the game oblivious to the people (and cars) around them. New York is the type of City where if you’re even slightly in the path of someone walking, some jerks will invariably go out of their way to elbow or bump you to “teach you a lesson”. Pokemon GO Plus is a device that you can strap around your wrist (or more likely that you can surreptitiously hold in your hand so that no one is the wiser that you’re playing) and use to do a few things in Pokemon GO: track your distance walked, collect items from PokeStops, and catch wild Pokemon (to a certain extent--see below), all without looking at your phone screen. As long as you have the latest version of the app installed you'll be able to use it. Inside the box you'll get the Pokemon Go Plus device itself, which is about the size of a quarter and about 1/4 inch thick. It’s made of solid plastic that’s brightly colored to look like a Regular Ball. It comes with an additional cloth wristband in the default red, white, and blue colors. The unit also comes attached with a solid plastic clip you can use to attach to your pocket or belt. There’s also a little hole to attach to a strap (not included) if you want to wear it around your neck. Very important–if you want to use the wristband, you’ll need to unscrew the ENTIRE back of the device and then snap it onto the holder on the band. (I can only imagine that certain point who don’t read the manual are going to try to forcibly “snap” the belt clip off, which would be a problem). To start using it, you just need to pull out the plastic tab to activate the battery. Next, you open the Pokemon GO app and click “Settings”. You’ll want to click on the menu option that says “Pokemon GO Plus”. Once you’re on the Pokemon GO plus screen, tap the button on your device. Your unit should flash and your should see your device show up under “Available Devices”. Back on the main screen you'll see a greyed-out icon on your Pokemon GO map. Tap that icon and after doing a one-time pairing of the device to your phone via Bluetooth you'll be able to tap that icon on and off whenever you want to use the device. Note that from time to time your Bluetooth connection will break--you'll be able to tell if this happens because the icon will go grey again. If this happens just tap the icon and it’ll be activated again (in some cases I've had to restart the app or even reboot my phone to get it to recognize again, but thankfully those are few and far between). From this point, you can start playing the game without looking at your phone screen. Your phone screen will still show you the status of what’s happening, but you don't need to be watching it. Now here’s how it works in action. When you pass by a Pokemon, the device will emit up to six long vibrations and the light will flash green if it encounters a Pokemon you've caught already (if it encounters one you haven't caught yet, it'll flash yellow). On the screen there’ll be a message that says “Pokemon is in range!” and you'll see a thin yellow line from the GO Plus icon to the Pokemon it found to let you know which one it’ll be going after. You can press the button on the device any time during the six vibrations. Behind the scenes, the app will attempt to catch that Pokemon by throwing a single Regular Ball at it (it will not use Great Balls or Ultra Balls, even if you’re out of Regular Balls). You'll feel three short vibrations (which are meant to simulate the three times the animated ball "shakes" in the on-screen animation). If you do catch something the device will vibrate five medium-length times to let you know you got it and the LED lights will flash rainbow colors in celebration. If it misses, it'll let you know by quickly vibrating twice (think "sad trombone") and flashing a red light. Aggravatingly, I had a Pidgey, a Gastly, a Dugtrio, and a Voltorb all run away before I finally caught a Goldeen. Overall my ratio seems to be about a 30-50% catch rate, which is about what I'd expect if I tried to catch every Pokemon with only a single Regular Ball on the first try at my current level with no curveball bonus (if you're at a lower level, chances are your catch ratio will likely be much higher). Over time, I've found that you catch mostly low CP Pokemons, with only the occasional higher one. For this reason, you definitely don’t want to be using the device in areas where you suspect there might be rare or high powered Pokemons--or anytime you see that yellow light flash indicating a new Pokemon you don't already have (to deactivate the device and assume manual control, just tap on the GO Plus logo or tap on the screen to attempt to capture the Pokemon like normal). While the high miss rate might sound like an annoyance, I've concluded that it's a fair trade-off, as clicking a button is much, much easier than taking out your phone, tapping the Pokemon on the screen, and swiping the ball over and over again. I actually appreciate how they put a lot of thought into the effort-reward calculation rather than just automatically letting people who paid for the device get 100% of the Pokemons every time. By doing it the way, they ensure that you'll still play the way the game was intended to be played most of the time, but will be able to use the GO Plus device in situations where you simply can't look at your phone but still want at least a chance to catch something, such as when you're driving, biking, jogging or walking in the rain. PokeStops are a bit more friendly. When you pass by a PokeStop, the device will vibrate in two quick pulses (again, repeating up to six times) and the LED light will flash blue. If you're looking on your screen you’ll see a line from the GO Plus icon to the Stop that you’ll be collecting items from. Click on your device, and you'll feel a vibration (I'm guessing meant to simulate the PokeStop "spinning") and then you’ll collect all the items at that Stop (the device will buzz for each item you’ve collected and the screen will tell you how many items you’ve gotten). You do need to have the app open when using the device, but it can be running in the background as you use most other apps (the only exception I've found so far is with the Camera app on the iPhone). When using another app you'll see notifications letting you know if you've caught a Pokemon or if you've collected items from a PokeStop. The phone screen can even be locked and it’ll still work. Even better news–it’ll continue to track your distance in both cases, meaning you’ll get “credit” for the distance to your Buddy Pokemon and your Eggs. In fact, when using this device the distance calculations seem much more accurate than without it. For both PokeStops and Pokemons you catch you’ll get the normal amount of XP, candy, and stardust that you would if you were playing on your phone (there is a bug right now where you can't see the stardust you've earn right away, but rest assured it's there--just kill the app and restart it and you'll see all the numbers updated). It’s a great way to load up on stardust, the one thing I never seem to have enough of. As far as power, the device uses the larger CR2032 watch battery (the one about the size of a nickel), but because it uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) you’re not going to be swapping out batteries very often, even with daily use. And when you do need to change batteries, you can generally find replacements on Amazon or eBay for pennies. Overall, I’m very happy with this device, and can easily give it 5 of 5 stars–as with all other Nintendo devices it’s really well made–it’s just a shame that Nintendo took two months to get it out; had they gotten in out in July they would have been able to print money. But this is just the thing that’ll may just re-ignite interest in the game for a lot of those who left. It opens up new ways of being able to play the game that were impossible before–you can play while riding a bike, navigating through a crowd of people pressing against each other, walking in a rain or snow storm, and even on a slow-to-moderate moving car, bus, or train–all without the need to keep your nose buried in the phone screen. And if you're in college or at a meeting at work that happens to be over a PokeStop, you can quietly collect Pokemons during meetings without anyone being the wiser :P Another nice perk of the device is that you don't need to constantly be checking your phone to see if a Pokemon has shown up from a fresh lure or if the 5 minutes before you can collect new items is up--the instant either of these things happen your device will vibrate to let you know. A lot of people ask if you need this if you'll be getting the Pokemon GO app on the Apple Watch. I'd say yes--as convenient as the Watch app is, you'll still need to look at it and swipe it. With this, you don't need to look at your phone, your watch, or anything else. Just hold it in your hand, feel for the buzzes, and you're set. Overall I highly recommend getting this if you’re anything between a casual and a fanatical Pokemon GO player. As with most hardware from Nintendo, it’s not just well-made but may even become somewhat of a a collector’s item in time. Unfortunately, Nintendo yet again seems to not have forecast the demand properly, so there will be shortages in the beginning. As others have noted, I'd make sure to NOT buy from the price gougers on Amazon or eBay (these are the folks I presume are voting down my review). If other recent Nintendo hardware is any indication, Nintendo will overcompensate and there'll be a glut of these in a few weeks at $34.99.