'Pokémon Go' Battery Saver: This Google Maps Trick Won’t Work, but Here’s What Will

Impact

People are rediscovering the beauty of the real world (through their smartphone screens) this week thanks to Pokémon Go — an augmented reality game that's sucking up people's free time... and their phone's battery life. 

One strategy a Reddit user pointed out to conserve your sweet phone juice was to download maps from Google to use offline while you play Pokémon Go. Does it work? An expert says "nooooo." 

When asked if downloading the map from Google Maps to use offline is a viable solution to save battery life while playing the game, Google engineer Sam Thorogood tweeted that no, this is not a viable solution. 

Thorogood is an engineer at Google in the Developer Platforms team, according to his website, and has worked on Google Wave, Drive, Chrome, App Engine and, most importantly, Google Maps.

So rather than waste your time downloading maps to use offline when you can catch some more damn Pidgeys, try these tips to save battery life while playing Pokémon Go:

1. Dull the screen.

2. Turn the volume off. 

3. Disable background apps. 

4. Turn on the battery saver in Pokémon Go's settings.

5. Invest in an external battery pack.  

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