Trainers, hold on to your seats, because we have some huge news to share! Niantic has just announced Adventure Sync, a Pokemon GO feature designed to work with iOS HealthKit and Google Fit systems and allowing users to import their activity and movement into Pokemon GO.
The new game play system will sync in the background with iOS HealthKit and Android Google Fit, and give players access to a weekly summary that highlights distance traveled on foot and other stats, including calories burned or steps counted, if their device makes those available. The Adventure Sync system will begin to roll out to Trainers worldwide soon.
The following in-game mechanics will be affected by this new feature:
- Egg hatching will now be easier, allowing you to import kilometers
- Buddy Pokemon distance walking will also be easier
You will also be able to participate in weekly milestones for walking that will offer large rewards for Trainers who manage to complete them. Adventure Sync is the official name of a feature we data mined a while ago: Pokemon GO 0.119.5 update analysis: weekly fitness goals, Meteor Mash, leaked Fall event and more.
The new weekly summary will highlight the following statistics, given that your device makes them available:
- Distance traveled on foot
- Calories burned
- Steps counted
Curiously, Niantic hinted that Adventure Sync could be coming to more Niantic games soon: “Adventure Sync, which is first being implemented in Pokémon GO, gives players the ability to record their steps with just the phone in their pockets.”. Adventure Sync is not a Pokemon GO specific feature, it’s a feature that’s built on top of Niantic’s Real World Platform, which powers all Niantic games.
What about your Pokemon GO Plus?
We think that Go Plus won’t be dramatically affected by the new change, given that you will just import distances from HealthKit / Fit. It’s not yet clear if one kilometer on your phone will be imported as one kilometer in Pokemon GO, or there will be a conversion formula.
We’re also not sure if there will be any formulas in play when it comes to importing different types of activities, for example will bike rides and walks give the same amount of distance? Do I need a new bike now? Can we end the 7 KM egg creep by just biking through it?
We’ll see, but for now this feature looks amazing – background sync, uses common APIs, the code is more or less in place already. Bring it on Niantic, bring it on.
