‘Pokémon Go’ Update 0.45.0 Causing Major Battery Drain On Android/iOS, Users Report

Pokémon Go got a daily quests update earlier this week, and it’s reportedly causing major battery drain problems for many users across Android and iOS. Pokemon Go Hub and a corresponding reddit thread reveal the full nature of the situation.

Following a personal analysis of the issue and thread, the source discovered that a whopping 30 to 40 percent more battery life was being consumed by the newly updated game. OnePlus One, Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy J5 Android phones were noted to drop from a full charge to nearly dead in about 90 minutes. Prior to the update, their average endurance was around 120 to 150 minutes. On the iOS end of the spectrum, the report suggested a similar dip with an iPhone 6S.

A second common issue amongst several users is that battery drain sometimes occurs even when the device is connected to an additional portable battery.

Some of the mentioned devices are fairly old which could correlate to decreased battery health while playing Pokémon Go in general, but the case of the iPhone 6S is especially interesting. That’s a fairly new phone model, but it was a mentioned outlier amongst a much larger pool of Android complaints.

Another root cause of the battery drain could be the Niantic development team’s ongoing commitment to stifle third-party tracking tools. In a recent post, FastPokeMap’s creator mentioned that excess code was being added to the app to make its tracking algorithm more difficult to reverse engineer. Because devices now have to sift through all that useless language, the processor strain is increased. We don’t know if that’s the cause of this particular bug, but it’s possible.

As is typically the case for issues like this, the only real fix can come from Niantic in a subsequent update. At the time of writing, that has not happened.

Aside from battery drain, however, Pokémon Go’s latest update has been widely appreciated. For a limited time, PokeStop item drops and Pokémon spawn rates have been increased. The game’s recent Halloween event was also well received.

Pokémon Go is available now on Android and iOS.

Have you experienced any battery drain problems since update 0.45.0 went live? Tell us in the comments section!