The first time you play pokemon sleepthe mobile game that tracks your sleep and catches pokemon prompts you to leave your phone screen on but to just put your phone face down on the bed. That said, you should also keep your phone plugged in or else you risk draining your phone’s battery overnight.
(For context, I’m using an iPhone 13 that has seen better days for playing pokemon sleep, so my experiences may be the same as those using an Android or newer iPhone.)
The bright side is that you turn your phone around dim the screen, although it won’t actually lock your phone. The screen stays on, and while it’s been largely replaced by black space, you’ll still see the time, service provider information, and battery indicators at the top of your screen. Obviously people (myself included) are afraid to leave their phone screen on at night.
The other option, as mentioned in the game, is to invest in the Pokémon Go Plus Plus, a little gadget that tracks your sleep for you, rather than your phone.
The Go Plus Plus costs $55.
The first morning I woke up after keeping my phone screen on my phone was hot and not even fully charged. (It was about 80%. Usually when I plug it in at the end of the night, it’s fully charged in the morning.
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As a person who loves Pokémon games (even if those games are silly mobile spin-offs), I had to find out: Do I really have to keep my phone screen on while I sleep?
This is the answer I got: No, unless you’re really trying to get accurate sleep data and maximize your Pokémon gainz. If you’re just trying to encourage healthy sleep habits and find some fun friends in the morning, you can turn off your screen.
If you turn off your phone screen after tracking your sleep and look at your lock screen, you’ll see the little orange microphone in the top left corner, indicating that Pokémon Sleep is still tracking your sounds (at least on iOS), so it’s not like the app actively open and must be on your screen to pick up sounds.
Image: Niantic, Select Button/The Pokémon Company via Polygon
So far I have tried 4 times to turn off my phone screen. On two of those occasions, my phone has lasted all night and recorded my sleep. When my alarm went off, I just grabbed my phone, unlocked the screen, reopened the app, and ended my sleep session.
The other two times the app closed in the background, prematurely ending my sleep session. On Tuesday it ended at almost 5 o’clock, and on Thursday almost made it through the morning, but fell about 10 minutes before my usual wake up time. The app just told me that my sleep data was paused, but I was still able to view it. I tried to free up some phone power by closing all my other apps before bed, but it would still randomly close (or crash?) in the background.
That said, there is a risk that if the app closes within 90 minutes of starting the sleep session, you won’t save each dates, as all sessions must last at least 90 minutes. This isn’t a problem I ran into, but again, I’ve only tried it four times (so far).
Had I had a more powerful phone, the tracking might have lasted all night, but I didn’t really care as I was still able to revise my research and catch Pokémon in the morning. I’m not going to make high-score Snorlax tables, but that’s okay.
Polygon contacted The Pokémon Company to ask why the phone screen must be on during tracking, but did not receive a response in time for publication.