In my last post I covered the basics of the premise of Pokemon Sleep: how each night you get a good night of sleep you’ll collect “Drowsy Power” that will allow your sleeping Snorlax to attract other Pokemon around him. As you get more quality sleep each night you’ll wake to find more species of Pokemon snoozing next to Snorlax in the morning. Each Pokemon species has a unique “sleep type”, and you’ll be able to collect different “sleep styles” for each.

So there’s your “gotta catch them all” bit of the game. As Johnny Carson used to say, “Buy the Premise, Buy the Bit”. If I need to get a good night’s sleep to see what all four versions of a sleeping Pichu look like, by gum I’m gonna do it.

I suppose the developers could have left it at simply collecting new Pokemon (which the developers of apps like Pokemon Smile did). But they added a whole bunch of other things to the game to continue to enhance your enjoyment and immersion into the game, while at the same time prolonging the life span of the game itself.

They wisely avoided including any “fighting” mechanisms into the game, focusing instead on more “collection”, namely, collecting berries from your “helper Pokemon” to feed Snorlax, and collecting recipes that you can use to cook your Snorlax’s favorite dishes. Yes, it is ironic that an app that tries to incentivize you to have some self-control in your sleep also seeds your mind with the thought of gluttony, encouraging your Snorlax and your helper Pokemon to gorge on biscuits, berries, curries, saurces, and being a general glutton, but I’ll give them a pass…and I’ll use Pokemon GO to lose any excess weight I gain from their subliminal suggestions.

Here are the various tasks you can do to make your Snorlax “the very best”.

Snack Time

Every day after you finish reviewing your morning’s haul of Pokemon, you’ll be given a “Bonus Biscuit”, which you can feed to one of the Pokemon hanging around you. You get one free Biscuit every day, but if you’re impatient you can always spend real money to buy more at the General Store.

There are also “very prized items” called Master Biscuits that will fill your Pokemon to the max in one shot.

You’ll get one for free, but after that you’ll need to trade in “Sleep Points” for more of them, among other goodies.

Using Berries to Raise Snorlax

Your goal is to raise your Snorlax to be as big and strong as possible. You do this by feeding it berries.

As you max out your friendship levels with each Pokemon, they’ll collect more and more berries for you to feed to your Snorlax.

You’ll see them walking around with a little magnifying glass above them if they have berries. Click on it and the berries will spread on the ground so you can collect them and give them to Snorlax. The more you sleep, the more energy your Pokemon will have to collect berries.

One pet peeve I have is that there’s no way to “collect all”, you do apparently have to “tap tap tap tap” every morning, which I imagine will get annoying after a while.

In addition to berries, your Helper Pokemon will find ingredients that you can use to make dishes.

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinnertime

Snorlax does get hungry, so at certain points of the day you’ll see a little thought bubble above him telling you that it’s time for a meal. Here’s where you’ll want to take the ingredients you have an whip together the dish that he requests (mine was “Curries and Stews”)

There’s an option you can unlock quickly that allows you to follow a specific recipe, and I suppose if you’re really bored you can do that. But I just choose the “Auto Cook” option to toss random ingredients together and see what comes out.

You’ll see your dish “cooking”, which is really a way to present to you a Sleep Tip. The Sleep Tips are actually pretty good facts and advice related to sleep, and I have to give the developers credit here: normally I just disregard tips like this, but when it’s displayed while I’m waiting for my dish to “cook”, it does get me to read and re-read it a few times.

Snorlax will scarf the food down…

…and of course, fall right back asleep.

But he’ll get “bigger and stronger”, attracting even more Pokemon with different Sleep Styles for you to complete your Dex. Feed your Snorlax berries and meals throughout the day, and feed your Pokemon candies and “Dream Shards” to register as many Sleep Styles as possible.

I knew I was getting a little too much “into” the game when I learned after a week of play that I would be assigned a new Snorlax every week and got a little sad. They grow up so fast.

Here’s the explanation that was given.

Moving to New Sites. You’ll spend seven days—from Monday through Sunday—raising a Snorlax each week by building up its Strength a you carry out sleep research. Buy when the week is over, it will be time to say goodbye to that Snorlax, move to a new research site, and find a new Snorlax to help with your studies.

Missions

As if it weren’t enough incentive to feed your Snorlax and make Pokemon friends, Pokemon Sleep has a ton of “Missions” for you to accomplish which will earn you more prizes.

Okay, so what’s the verdict? I predict you’ll have a lot of young people mocking this game and going back to playing their traditional video games on the couch.

On the other hand, there’s a whole market out there, from parents who want to find ways to get their kids a full 10 hours of sleep, to workaholic adults (especially with more people who are working remotely and have lost all boundaries) looking for any way to get them to improve their sleep habits and get a full 7 to 9 hours to maintain good health and feel refreshed and functional the next day. I think these folks (which includes me) will welcome this game and this device to their lives. Medical science has proven beyond a doubt that getting enough rest helps provide your body with healing, energy, and vitality, and yet it’s the first thing most of us neglect. Here’s to Nintendo, The Pokemon Company, Select Button, and Niantic for taking another step of hopefully many more to use video gaming to improve our health and our lives.

So as you’ve been reading the last few days, the Pokemon Sleep app was just the thing I needed to come out of “retirement”. Granted, I doubt there’s anyone left who used to read this blog back when it was called “Nutwiisystem.com” fourteen years ago. But if you’re out there, thanks for coming back 🙂

A lot has changed in my life over the last decade and a half. I got married, had a daughter, and grew more than a few grey hairs. Weight loss is still a concern for me, but even more so are things like blood pressure and heart health.

A few months ago, I learned that a friend of mine nearing his 60’s that he had a heart attack. I talked to him on the phone and he said that he kept himself in great shape, but the only thing he didn’t do right was get much sleep each night, and that’s what triggered his health issues. Thankfully, he’s on the road to recovery, but it was a wake-up call (no pun intended) to me to get my own terrible sleep habits in order. Since our company started supporting remote work, I find myself often working until 3am, only to realize that I hadn’t fallen asleep yet and I have a call at 9am.

So this device and app couldn’t have come at a better time for me. I’m the kind of person who needs a little nudge to remind me to get off the computer and go to bed. My wife, bless her heart, tries every night to politely remind me “you should go to bed”. I say, “okay”, but then I end up spending two more hours on the computer. But since this app came into my life, I find myself panicking 10 minutes before my bedtime for fear that I’m not going to get “full credit” for my sleep tomorrow. I think this is precisely what Satoru Iwata had in mind. If there’s something that the Pokemon Company and Nintendo messed up with, it’s targeting younger people who can routinely pull all-nighters without missing a beat rather than Gen X’ers like myself who are starting to look for ways to buy ourselves just a few more years on this wonderful planet.

On to Day 3 of my experience with Pokemon Sleep and Pokemon GO Plus +.

Yesterday I covered all the “scientific” thought that went into the design of the app. Today, we’ll focus a little more on the “fun”.

When you think about it, the “fun” has been the missing component to getting people to build healthy habits like exercise and sleep.

We’ve covered the “exercise” part 14 years ago with Nintendo’s innovations around the Wii and the Wii U to promote exercise. In many ways, the Switch has continued some of this, and now that I have a Switch, I’ll be (belatedly) reviewing some of those games.

But to be honest, the “exercise game” of choice for me has been Pokemon GO (I’ve walked more than 8,000 miles with it), so the introduction of Pokemon Sleep is perfect for me.

We’ve been hearing on talk shows about the “sleep cycles” and “REM sleep” for years, but it generally goes in one ear and out the other. But a game like this is just the thing to bring the addictive qualities of video games and to use them to push us to building good habits.

So did the device finally get it right on Day 3?

Yes, it did. I woke up, clicked on the middle button for a few seconds, and the button flashed different colors and chimed with Pikachu’s frenetic voice.

I opened my app and clicked on the button to connect to the device. The device vibrated, which gave me hope that the app had connected.

To my dismay, I got this message.

I groaned to myself. Does this mean that for a SECOND day my sleep wasn’t being tracked, and in fact today I had no data at all? I started to really regret paying $55 for this thing.

They say that the definition of insanity is to try something over and over again and expect different results. But I kept on pressing the button again and again. I got this same message three times, but on the fourth time I saw this.

I let out a sigh of relief. But of course, now that I saw the confirmation of “Sleep data found in the Pokemon GO Plus +”, the next question is…how much data did it get this time?

I saw today’s date show up, which was a good sign.

And then I saw that I was “credited” with the full 7 hours and 46 minutes, which felt great. I think the difference that I didn’t put the device so close to me that I could roll over it, but not too far that it couldn’t sense my movement during the night.

I should say that it didn’t just feel great to see that the device and the app were actually working. I felt great because I’d gotten a solid night of sleep for the first time in weeks. The thought of my Snorlax being undernourished or not attracting my favorite Pokemon was enough to push me to go to bed at a semi-reasonable hour (for me at least).

Even more impressive, when I saw the “Sleep Graph” I could see my sleep cycles, from N1 to N2 to N3 and back and forth. I have no recollection what happened at 7 AM, but clearly whatever it was, I drifted back to sleep again.

Honestly I don’t know how much of this is truly accurate and how much is smoke and mirrors, but that’s almost beside the point. It got me to bed on time, it got me to sleep through the night, and the dopamine rush from seeing my sleep cycle alone turns sleep from a “chore” into something interesting.

But of course, “interesting” lasts only a short time, and that’s where the “fun” part comes in. Did The Pokemon Company, their developer Select Button, and Nintendo do a good job of extending the Pokemon brand in this new way while still keeping it fresh? There have been over 75 different Pokemon video games, not even counting the card game that started it all. How many times can we “catch them all”?

Well, happily, The Nintendo Company is known for being very protective of its IP, and this is not different. First, the Pokemon in this game (as well as other similar mobile games like Pokemon Smile) are rendered as cartoons, I believe so they don’t cause confusion with the most modern games like Pokemon Scarlet, Pokemon Violet, and Pokemon GO. But the art was done in such a detailed way, the storyline “works” within the Pokemon universe, and the little details of gameplay are unique enough that I believe this experience stands on its own.

The “Pokemon” Part of Pokemon Sleep

I’ll have to admit, as simple and straightforward as the sleep tracking functions are, it’s the Pokemon gameplay aspects of the app that I find a bit overwhelming from the get-go. There are concepts like Sleep Styles, a Sleep Dex, Recipes, Drowsy Power, and a dizzying number of new concepts.

Let’s start with the first one: Drowsy Power.

Tutorial: Drowsy Power

Finally, let’s turn our attention to Drowsy Power. You see, Drowsy Power is what I call the mysterious power that Snorlax on these island possess. It’s a power that seems to both draw Pokemon close and lull them to sleep. This power depends on a Snorlax’s Strength (how much it has grown) and your sleep time. By increasing this power, you can get lots of different Pokemon to come sleep near Snorlax. And then, you may discover some of the rare sleep styles they can display.

Pokedex entries from Generation I to the latest Generation VIII talk about Snorlax’s gluttony and its propensity for sleep, and they go as far to say that children and small Pokemon have been known to play on his belly, but it wasn’t until now that it had the power to lull others around it to sleep. But it’s a little expansion of the canon that makes perfect sense.

I skipped through these screens at first, but in many ways they’re the most important part of the introductory tutorials because they explain the premise of this game. Your goal, like every other Pokemon game, is to “catch them all”, but the way to “catch them” is to lure them near your Snorlax. The higher your Snorlax’s “Drowsy Power”, the more variety of Pokemon will come to you. Each kind of Pokemon will have a certain sleep style, but different Pokemon within each kind will have different “sleep styles”. As you attract different Pokemon with different sleep styles, you’ll start putting together your “Sleep Style Dex”, which will consist of the familiar Pokemon we’ve known for years, but different ones will have different styles of sleep, ensuring an exponential number of variations of Pokemon PLUS sleep styles to collect, something needed if this app is going to be used for months or years.

Here’s what my Drowsy Power was after the first day (the one that didn’t register my complete night of sleep).

I’m sure my score of 1,080,000 would have been higher with a fuller night of sleep and a working Pokemon GO Plus +, but I’ll take it!

And here’s the good Professor’s excited reaction:

Surely enough sleeping around my Snorlax were some adorable Pokemon curled up and sound asleep.

The next step was to swipe around the screen to look for new Pokemon who were sleeping near Snorlax. While this was certainly fun, I question whether over time this isn’t going to get a little annoying each morning. I hope in a future update they give an option to just claim every day’s new entrants.

One nice thing about the “Sleep Style Dex” is that it adds a whole new dimension to Pokemon lore. As with any Poke Dex, you can read a little bio about the creature’s sleep habits, as well as view little videos of them sleeping. It’s adorable!

Whenever you discover a new sleep style, you’ll get a screen that looks like this:

Followed by the style name…

…and of course the Dex entry.

From Professor Neroli:

You’ll find that each species of Pokemon can be classified as having a particular sleep type. And your sleep type for a given session will cause Pokemon with that same sleep type to gather. 

In my case, my sleep type was deemed to be “Snoozing” for my first day, which is what brought Charmander and Pikachu there (Snoozing-type Pokemon tend to include Fire and Electric types). Not sure how Meowth snuck in there.

Presumably, as long as your sleep goes through all the cycles you’ll eventually have a lot of different varieties of Pokemon and sleep types (i.e., they won’t force you to sleep for 1 hour one night just to get the “Dozing” types :P)

Once you “catch them all” for the day, you’ll get a congratulations screen.

So far, so good. But next time I’ll start talking you through some of the more “advanced” concepts in this game, including Missions, Friendship Points, Biscuits, Berries, Recipes, Sleep Passes and other new concepts in this game that may seem off-putting at first, but make sense once you climb the learning curve.

So, I went to bed at about 1:00am last night and woke up around 7:16am. Here are my updated experiences with the Pokemon Sleep app and the Pokemon GO Plus + hardware device.

The first unpleasant surprise I had was that when I clicked the middle button to tell the Pokemon GO Plus + that I woke up, Pikachu started singing a lullaby again. Which means that sometime during the night—when I was sound asleep—the device decided to stop tracking my sleep. That’s something that Nintendo needs to fix.

As I would later find out, the device stopped tracking at 3:18am. I don’t recall getting up at that time, so the device must have detected something during that night that made it think that I woke up, probably that I had my air conditioner set to turn off around that time (it’s possible that when that happened I tossed and turned in my sleep). Anyway, that seems to be a major flaw in the app: they really need to make it so that the device continues to track until I explicitly tell it not to.

Anyway, I started up the Pokemon Sleep app this morning and was greeted by Professor Neroli.

On the next screen I had the option to finally start the “Sleep Research Tutorial”, something I definitely recommend as I was to later learn that this app isn’t as intuitive as it probably should be.

The first thing I saw was my “sleep report” for this day.

Tutorial: Understanding Your Sleep Score

The first tutorial is called “Understanding Your Sleep Score”. I don’t like the fact that you can’t go back and read Professor Neroli’s tutorials once you finished them, so I’ll transcribe what he said here.

Here you can see both how long you slept and your sleep score for this session. An adult can reach a sleep score of 100 by making sure they get at least 8.5 hours of sleep. Your goal is to reach 100, so try to get as much sleep as you can. 

Here was my Sleep duration for the night, which as I said robbed me of about 4 hours of sleep. I wasn’t happy, but it’s still early so we’ll see if this happens again through the week.

Next, you’ll be sent to the next tutorial.

Tutorial: The Different Sleep Stages

Next, let’s look at your different sleep stages. These sleep stages help show how deep your sleep is. When tracking your sleep, I classify it into three stages: Dozing, Snoozing, and Slumbering. Try to keep an eye on how your sleep fluctuates over time. 

It looks like this is confirming what I mentioned yesterday: that Nintendo is taking the sleep cycles of NREM sleep and making it more accessible to the general population. “Dozing” appears to correspond to N1 (Stage 1) or “Light Sleep”, “Snoozing” corresponds to N2 (Stage 2) or “Deeper Sleep”, and “Slumbering” corresponds to N3 (Stage 3) or “Deepest Non-REM Sleep” as well as “REM Sleep”.

Here’s what my chart looked like.

Here was the jaw-dropping moment for me. After syncing my sleep data for the first time, I could see a graph of my sleep during the night. The app didn’t just track how much sleep I got, but through the night I could see my sleep pattern, going from N1 (“Dozing”) to N2 (“Snoozing”) to N3 and REM (“slumbering”) sleep, and how much time I spent in each cycle.  It also tracked the time it took me to fall asleep.

This was the “a-ha” moment for me that convinced me that this isn’t just a gimmick but an actual sleep tracking device. As you can see, after I fell asleep at 1am, the Pokemon GO Plus+ device tracked me as I went from Stage 1 to Stage 3 to Stage 2, fluctuated between Stage 1 and Stage 2, and eventually fell into REM sleep. Like I said, that cutoff at 3:18am was not accurate, so it’s missing the next 4 hours of sleep.

Going in I thought this was a simple device just to time my sleep, but in reality it’s much more sophisticated than that. There’s an internal accelerometer in the device which is evidently super-sensitive, and it can detect my movements during sleep. Nintendo filed for a patent for this in 2019, and this is evidently the result.

Tutorial: Sleep Types

Next, Pokemon Sleep will classify your Sleep Type.

Here’s what the good professor had to say in full:

This next screen is where you can see your sleep type. Your sleep type captures the qualities of that sleep session and is decided based on comparison with your past sleep. When you don’t have much data yet, your sleep will instead be compared to generic sleep data. Build up your own data to be used for comparison, and the precision of these measurements will keep going up. I ask you to do your best to track your sleep every single day, without fail! 

The demonstration numbers shown in the screenshot are roughly equivalent to the averages that a typical adult spends in each stage (credit to the NIH Web site for this info).

• N1 – Light Sleep – 5%
• N2 – Deeper Sleep – 45%
• N3 – Deepest Non-REM Sleep – 25%
• REM – 25%

I didn’t have enough sleep recorded for it to give me my own numbers, but it did give me my “Sleep Type” as “Snoozing”, which means I got out of light sleep but not quite into REM sleep where the health benefits are the strongest.

As I said, it only caught 2 hours and 18 minutes, so if it captured my whole sleep cycle it may have given me different results. Let’s hope the device is more accurate in the weeks ahead.

What I love about this device and this app is how it makes these otherwise esoteric concepts more accessible to the general public, and helps us manage our sleep better. I plan on using it to get from my current bad habits (since I started working from home my sleep habits have been terrible; I lose track of time and sometimes go to sleep at 3am and getting only an hour or two a night). This app, with no exaggeration, may very well save my life, since I myself am getting up there in age. For younger people, survival may not be your #1 goal, but this app can help build good sleep habits that will help you for a lifetime. With good sleep comes high productivity, better health, good metabolism, and better mental health.

Update: Weekly Summary of Sleep

A Pokemon Sleep week lasts for 7 days and goes from Monday to Sunday. On the following Monday, you’ll get a letter grade for your “Sleep Consistency” based on your week of sleep. Here’s the grade I got after my first week, along with some visuals showing my sleep pattern for the short week since I started.

Really nothing surprising here. It was my first week of playing, the device didn’t really work on Thursday, but on Saturday and Sunday the device did work and I just didn’t get a decent night of sleep for either night. Not coincidentally, it was Friday that I did get a full night of sleep and felt fantastic the whole day.

I’m reading some of the early reviews and blog posts about this app, and every now and again I see a note about how to “game the system”. I can’t help but chuckle at people who are so used to cheating that they’ll even cheat on a game like this. Obviously, the point here is not to win the game, but to use the mechanics of the game to provide an additional motivation to improve your health. But I suppose there are some in our society who just want to “win” at any cost.

After your “grade” you can see some statistics about your sleep, including how long it took you to fall asleep, your average duration of sleep, the total time you slept, and your wake up times. You can use this data every night to look for patterns to help you shake some bad habits or to give you a chance at better sleep.

For the next review, I’ll dive deeper into the more fun “Pokemon-y” aspects of the game. Perhaps the most powerful thing about this game isn’t the impressive technology, but how it uses tried-and-true Pokemon gameplay as a motivation to get you to be consistent.

Nintendo messed up a bit by not releasing Pokemon Sleep prior to the launch date of the Pokemon Go Plus +, which left a lot of people scratching their heads. While the integration on Pokemon GO was ready on the launch date, it’s not until you install Pokemon Sleep that this device really shows its potential. I think this also messed up with the naming; “Pokemon GO Plus +” is cute, but instead of associating the device with a seven year-old device, they should have started fresh with “Pokemon Sleep Tracker”.

Now that Nintendo has finally released Pokemon Sleep for the iPhone and Android, and now that I’ve used it for one sleep cycle, I can provide my updated thoughts on the Pokemon Go Plus +, as well as this app, which has the potential of changing, and maybe even saving, your life.

For the first few days after the launch of this device, Pokemon GO was the only app that could use this device, which left a lot of early reviewers scratching their heads. I just paid $60 for that??

But once Pokemon Sleep launched, it made a lot more sense. While the device’s integration with Pokemon GO was more of a side note and a curiosity, it’s with this app that this device reaches its full potential.

When you start up the app, you’ll see this notice that reiterates that use of this app is free. You can use the full version without paying for it (the main reason to pay for an in-game purchase would be to keep a “sleep diary” that stores your data over time, but you can certainly play the game without it. Same thing goes for the Pokemon Go Plus + device; you can technically play the game using just your smartphone as the way to track your sleep.

Upon entering the game for the first time, you’re asked to enter your region and date of birth, enter a username, andsign away your life accepting a bunch of privacy and legal screens. You’re also asked if you’d like to start fresh or to transfer sleep data from another device, presumably one that you’ve had Pokemon Sleep installed on before.

You’re then greeted by “Professor Neroli” who sets up the story: he’s researching the sleep habits of Pokemon, including the Snorlax, and has assigned a Pikachu to you as a research partner.

You’ll be assigned your very own Pikachu who will he your assistant as he helps you in your “research”.

You’ll then set your bedtime for each night.

This is an important step, because whatever time you enter here will be your bedtime each night. You can turn notifications on so that you’re reminded to go to bed on time. You’ll get extra “rewards” in both Pokemon Sleep and Pokemon GO every day you get to bed by your bedtime and record more than 90 minutes of sleep.

Pairing the Pokemon GO Plus + with Pokemon Sleep

I was kind of surprised at how smooth the process to pair the Go Plus + was. After you enter your bedtime you’ll have the option of pairing your device.

Pokemon Sleep will request Bluetooth access.

Once this is done, you’ll be asked to press the main button for “just a moment” (between 1 and 2 seconds seems to be the best).

Once the app finds your device, you’ll start the pairing process by simultaneously pressing the main button AND the top button (which if you don’t look carefully is hard to miss—the only other function of this button is to check the battery status).

If all goes well, you’ll get a message saying that the Device has been paired.

However, there were certain cases, especially in my first week of using the app, that I got this nasty message, despite doing everything correctly: Pokemon Go Plus+ not found. Please check that it is nearby and not in sleep tracking mode.

There’s a button that says “Communication Not Working?” which is useless; all it does is send me to the Web site with generic information.

Strangely, while the old saying is that “insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”, the first thing I tried was just to press the button a few times, and lo and behold invariable at the 6th or 7th time the thing would finally connect.  My guess is that it just took time for the Bluetooth connection to be negotiated and made between my phone and the device (as they’ve launched new updates to the app, I find myself encountering this error less and less, so hopefully they fixed the issues.

How to Use the Pokemon Go Plus+ Every Night

The Sleep Tracking Tutorial, which for some reason they’ll just show you once and then never show you again, explains how to use the Pokemon Go Plus+ every night.

The first thing you want to do is make sure you don’t have Pokemon GO open, and that your device is connected via Bluetooth. Once you do that, hold down the main button on the device for about 1.5 seconds.If you hold it for less than that, the button will flash but won’t track your sleep.

Once you hear the sound (Pikachu singing a lullaby) your sleep tracking has started. You’ll want to place the device by your pillow.

Tracking will begin as soon as Pikachu’s lullaby starts. If you’re ready to track a real session, you should place the device by your pillow once the song starts. You can stop the lullaby with a short press on the main button. (You can also disable it in the settings)

When you wake up in the morning you can stop tracking by holding down the main button, again for about 1.5 seconds. You’ll hear a series of chimes and see the lights flashing different colors. 

How to adjust settings of your Pokemon Go Plus+ Device

One of the biggest frustrations from people who got the Pokemon GO Plus+ device before Pokemon Sleep was launched was that there was no way to configure the device. That’s changed with a few new screens in the Pokemon Sleep app.

On the first screen, you can set your device to wake you up and to notify you to sleep at a specific time each night. You’ll also see statistics in the Pokemon Sleep app about Pokemon GO that aren’t available in the Pokemon GO app, such as the total sleep time and number of Pokestops spun.

You can also configure the various Pikachu sounds that come out of your Pokemon GO Plus +. As you play the game, more and more different sounds will be available.

Finally, you’ll be able to set your device to connect to Pokemon Sleep automatically, to display a warning when the device needs to be charged, or to display warnings when the Pokemon GO Plus+ is in silent mode.

How Pokemon Sleep tracks your sleep

It wasn’t until walking through the Tutorial in Pokemon Sleep that I realized things I was doing wrong. To start your sleep every night, your device needs to be lying flat before you press the button.

Also you can’t have Pokemon GO open when you use Pokemon Sleep.

Here’s the cool thing about the app. It’s not as simple as recording your sleep from the time you press the buttons to sleep and wake up. The app will use the internal accelerometer in your Pokemon Go Plus + device (or your phone) to estimate when you first enter deep sleep, and it ends the last time you enter shallow sleep. As such, the app really works best if you sleep alone and put the device close to your head without you rolling over it or sleeping on it.

The stats on the app are incredibly detailed. You can track sleep duration, time it takes you to fall asleep, how deep your sleep is, and a “star rating” for how good your sleep was. For an additional fee you can purchase a “Premium Pass” which will keep a “Sleep Diary” for you, but the experience is just fine without it. Here’s all the kinds of data that the app can record for you. I used a screenshot from Nintendo’s site because these screens won’t unlock in the app until you’ve slept for at least one complete sleep cycle (90 minutes), but tomorrow I’ll share details from my own experience.

As your use of the app continues your sleep will be “graded” based on how long and how consistently you sleep. The terms Pokemon Sleep uses roughly maps to the sleep cycles that are commonly accepted among the scientific and medical experts. Again, I’m showing Nintendo’s screenshot, but I’ll share my own experiences tomorrow.

• Dozing: This is “Stage 1” of sleep when your breathing and heartbeat start to slow down.
• Snoozing: This is “Stage 2” of sleep, which is shallow sleep.
• Slumbering: This is “Stage 3” of sleep, otherwise known as “Deep Sleep”. This is when your brain waves are at their lowest and your body is getting the most rest and leads to REM sleep.
• Balanced: This presumably means that you’re at your healthiest, and you’ve gotten a good amount of sleep for your best health.

As I said in the last post, I see this app and this device as an homage to former CEO Satoru Iwata’s vision of turning Nintendo into a “Quality of Life” company; he first announced this device in 2014, Nintendo received the patent for it in 2019, and now 10 years later it’s a reality. Along with obesity, sleep deprivation is one of the biggest health issues our society deals with, and between Pokemon GO and Pokemon Sleep, it’s cool to see Nintendo taking the lead in using the endorphins, dopamine, oxytocin, and seratonin we would otherwise get by sitting on the couch and using it to improve our lives and our health.

Common questions:

Q: Do I need a Pokemon Go Plus + to use Pokemon Sleep?

A: The app can be used without this device, but use of the device greatly improves the accuracy of the data over using your smartphone (plus, I don’t love the idea of putting the smartphone next to my head all night; unlike a smartphone, this device won’t emit a ton of radiation into your head all night).

Q: Why is the Pokemon Go Plus + flashing red when I try to start my sleep session?

A: One of the following is probably happening:

• You have Pokemon GO open
• You are holding the device in your hand instead of putting it flat on your mattress
• You have more than two “sleep sessions” open

Q: What is the minimum time of a “sleep session”?

A: You need to sleep at least 90 minutes for the sleep to “count”

Q: Can I use the Pokemon Go Plus + without my smartphone on my bed?

A: Yes. You won’t get features such as the microphone recording your audio (which sounds kind of creepy anyway) but you the device’s accelerometer should be able to track even slight movements to determine what kind of sleep you’re getting.

Q: How do I know if a “sleep session” is being recorded?

This took me a while to figure out. You need to click (quickly) on the main button and if you see it flashing blue, it means a sleep session is in the process of being recorded. If it flashes white, it means the device is not tracking sleep.

Q: How do I put my device in Silent Mode?

This is another one I discovered by accident. Just press and hold the main button and the top button you use to check the battery to toggle the device between Silent Mode and regular mode. Handy for those times when you’re in a group and don’t necessarily want everyone to hear Pikachu screaming at the top of his voice.

Q: I forgot to start my device. Can I still get “credit” for my sleep? 

Kind of. If less than 30 hours has passed since your sleep session, you can enter it manually by putting the start date/time and end date/time. Just click the “Add Sleep Data” on the Main Menu. You won’t get the usual rewards, but you’ll get a small reward for the first sleep session logged for a day (unless you pay extra for a Premium Pass, in which case you’ll get all your bonus sleep points).

Q: I forgot to stop my session so it recorded too much time. Can I “delete” that time? 

I looked all over for a place where I could delete my data and I couldn’t find it. That messed up all my weekly averages for that week, but on the bright side I got extra rewards 🙂 But seriously, I hope this is a feature that they can add, as I imagine a lot of people are going to forget to stop their sleep sessions and/or may accidentally start one without realizing they did (which I did).

A great way to build healthy sleep habits

It’s been a few years since I posted here, mainly because there wasn’t all that much to post about. The Wii and Wii U had gone its course, and subsequent offerings from Microsoft, Playstation, and iOS and Android developers, while nice efforts in their own rights, just failed to capture the kind of zeitgeist that Nintendo did with the Wii that made them (and this blog) so popular around 2009. On top of this, a little girl game into my life in 2015 who has taken up most of my waking (and sleeping) hours, so I haven’t had time to blog.

That said, because of said little girl, I am thinking about re-starting this blog. I am the proud (albeit belated) owner of a new Nintendo Switch. And as was the case when I started this blog in 2009, I am mildly obese again and have high blood pressure to boot. I’m getting up there in age, and want to make sure I’m around as possible for my child. So I’m thinking about restarting this whole blog. Of course I still can’t call it “Nutwiisystem” thanks to the cease and desist letters from the short-sighted Nutrisystem lawyers (their diet didn’t work anyway—go with something like Noom who actually changes your eating habits). And I don’t have any expectations that this blog will ever reach the heights of popularity that it did in 2009. But as I did in 2009, I’ll try out a few Switch exercise games and live-blog my progress, sort of as a nostalgic nod back to those halcyon days.

Happily, the Nintendo Company has given me a good excuse to start blogging again with this release of the Pokemon GO Plus + device.

I see the early reviews for this thing are terrible, so I’m going to be a contrarian. Just like Pokemon GO changed my life in 2016 by giving me an excuse to get out and walk more (to date, I have walked over 8,000 miles while playing the game), I am confident Pokemon GO Plus + is going to change my life by helping me get some control over my terrible sleep habits.

There will be two applications that use this device by the end of summer 2022: Pokemon GO and Pokemon Sleep.

I see the early reviews for this thing are terrible, but I’m going to be a contrarian.

Just as Pokemon GO changed my life in 2016 by giving me an excuse to get out and walk more (to date, I have walked over 8,000 miles while playing the game), I am confident Pokemon GO Plus + is going to change my life by helping me get some control over my terrible sleep habits.

There will be two applications that use this device by the end of summer 2023: Pokemon GO and Pokemon Sleep.

Using the Pokemon Go Plus Plus with Pokemon Go

The oddly named Pokemon GO Plus + is a device much like the old Pokemon Go Plus (the small plastic tear-shaped device) as well as the Poke Ball Plus (the device shaped like a 1 inch Pokeball), the mechanics are pretty much the same. You pair your device using Bluetooth and new menu options appear in the Settings. You can set it so that you manually click the large button in the middle of the unit to spin PokeStops and Gyms and to catch Pokemon around you. Or you can get it to auto-spin PokeStops and Gyms.

There are a few things new with this device. First, you can set it to throw Great Balls and Ultra Balls, something its predecessors could never do. Second, you can set it to auto-catch Pokemon using regular Poke Balls (this is something the “Go-tcha” device has been able to do for years, and Nintendo has finally caught up).

The big improvement is the addition of “Share Sleep Data with Pokemon GO” setting. Turn this setting on, and set a “reward time” In the morning (a time after you usually get up).

Then, when it’s time to go to bed, press down on the big button for a few seconds. You’ll see a blue light flashing and hear the dulcet tones of Pikachu singing a lullaby to you before you go to bed. Place the device near your pillow (not under it) and sleep for the night.

When you wake up press the button again. You’ll see rainbow colored lights and hear Pikachu excitedly greeting you in the morning. The next time you open up Pokemon GO, you’ll get a bunch of rewards, like Stardust, stickers, and hearts for your buddy. You’ll also see the amount of sleep you got. Pokemon GO will reward you depending on the amount of sleep you got.

Another bonus is that when you connect the device for the first time, new Special Research will show up called “Catching Some Z’s” with some simple tasks

Stage 1:

Catch 20 Pokémon in Poké Balls using Pokémon GO Plus + – 25 Poke Balls
Catch 10 Pokémon in Great Balls or Ultra Balls using Pokémon GO Plus + – 15 Great Balls
Spin 15 PokéStops using Pokémon GO Plus + – 2000 Stardust
Track sleep using Pokemon GO Plus + for 7 days – Komala

Stage 2:

Track sleep using Pokémon GO Plus + for 7 days – Snorlax wearing a Night Cap
Track sleep using Pokémon GO Plus + for 14 days – Snorlax wearing a Night Cap
Track sleep using Pokémon GO Plus + for 21 days – Snorlax wearing a Night Cap
Track sleep using Pokémon GO Plus + for 28 days – Snorlax wearing a Night Cap
Stage rewards: 2500 Stardust + 2500 XP

A lot of people are going to scoff at the device. “I don’t need an app to tell me to exercise or to sleep”. The point is, there are a lot of us who do need help in those areas, and I appreciate how Nintendo is using the dopamine rush of a video game to encourage me to develop better exercise and sleep habits.

Gripes

Yes, there are annoyances. I’m sure the Pikachu sound will get annoying over time (although you can toggle that on and off by pressing the main button and the little button on top). And I hope that Nintendo and Niantic are reading these reviews and will add things like the ability to turn vibration off via the app (something their documentation promises in Pokemon Sleep, but it’s not in Pokemon GO.

My biggest gripe is a simple one: Nintendo didn’t include an instruction manual with this product, making customers go to a confusing Web site with FAQs to try to find basic information about the device. For example, it took me a few nights to troubleshoot why the unit kept flashing red when I pressed the button before sleep, only to find that it’s because I was holding the unit vertically in my hand and not lying it flat on the bed. I think they did themselves a disservice, as the technology in this thing is far more sophisticated (and thus worth the $50+ price tag) than it appears.

But I’m giving it five stars based on the potential of this thing to help a lot of people—adults like me who have terrible sleep patterns and kids who need the extra push to go to bed on time. For those of us who fall into these categories, this device has the potential to—literally—save our lives.

Using the Pokemon Go Plus Plus with Pokemon Sleep

As others have mentioned, in a rather unfortunate example of poor planning, Nintendo has failed to released the Pokemon Sleep app that was supposed to be the companion to this device, leaving Pokemon GO as the only app that can use this device for the moment. But in reading the documentation for Pokemon Sleep, it’s clear that the app will be very sophisticated, tracking not only the amount of time you slept but using its internal accelerometer to track things such as how long it took you to fall asleep and how deep your sleep was.

Why Nintendo is Releasing Pokemon Go Plus Plus

A lot of people are probably going to be puzzled as to why Nintendo is releasing this device. After all, Pokemon GO, while still a popular mobile game, is nowhere near the popularity it once was.

I believe the reason goes back to 2014, when beloved Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, the genius behind the turnaround of Nintendo with the DS, the Wii, Nintendo’s entry into mobile gaming, and the Switch, announced that Nintendo was getting into the “quality of life” business, with a “sleep device” being the first of their products.

Sadly, Iwata would pass away not long after his announcement far too early at age 55. Nintendo then probably went through a ton of internal debate about whether to continue Iwata’s vision. In 2016, some people in the company announced that the Quality of Life initiative was cancelled, only to have others in the company file a patent in 2019, followed by some quick scrambling by the company to announce that it’s still in development.

I believe the release of the Pokemon Go Plus + now in 2023 is in many ways good people at Nintendo pressing forward with this project, knowing full well it wouldn’t necessarily be hugely profitable, in honor of him and his vision to transform Nintendo and video gaming itself into a positive impact on society and public health.

I see little pieces of this “quality of life” initiative showing up in various Nintendo games, from the leg strap needed to play Switch Sports Soccer, to the introduction of Ring Fit Adventure and its unique physical device, to the cute “morning stretch” feature in Animal Crossing New Horizons.

Don’t believe the early negative reviews and the gaming press who are piling on denigrating this device. Like many other hardware products that Nintendo put out, give it a chance, and it may change your life.

Frequently Asked Questions about Pokemon GO Plus Plus

Here are some of the head-scratching questions I’ve had to figure out that were buried in Nintendo’s frustratingly-organized FAQs.

1. Why does my Pokemon GO Plus Plus flash red when I try to press it before going to sleep?
   • This one took me a while to figure out. The answer is, the unit needs to be placed flat on your bed, not held in your hands, when you press the button. If the internal accelerometer senses that the unit is vertical, it will quickly flash blue and you’ll hear Pikachu singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.
2. Does the unit need to be connected to Pokemon GO to track sleep?
   • No, in fact it’s just the opposite; the unit needs to be disconnected. You can do so by pressing the little Pokeball icon in the upper right-hand corner. Then, lay the unit flat and click the button.
3. How do I know if my sleep is being tracked?
   • When you’re about to go to bed, place the unit flat on your bed by your pillow (not under it) and press the middle button. It should flash blue, and if you have the sound turned on you’ll hear Pikachu singing you a lullaby. Don’t touch it after that until you wake up in the morning—from that point it’s tracking your sleep.
4. How do I “undo” the Pokemon GO Plus Plus if I accidentally start a sleep session?
   • This was a frustratingly difficult answer to track down; I wrote to the Pokemon Company to get a straight answer, but my guess is that you can’t really “cancel” the sleep session, you can just “restart” it by clicking the button again, seeing the blue light flash again, and starting a new sleep session. Difficult to tell right now whether the device somehow stores your aborted sleep session, but I doubt it. I’ll update this FAQ once I hear definitively.
5. How do I get Pikachu to shut up??
   • This is one I found by accident. Press and hold the tiny little button at the TOP of the unit that’s used to check the battery (see next question) while at the same time holding down the big button in the middle. Pikachu’s voice will toggle on and off. You can also adjust this setting in the Pokemon GO preferences, and presumably in Pokemon Sleep once it’s available.
6. How do I check the battery?
   • Click on that tiny little button on the top of the unit. If the tiny LED glows red, your battery needs charging, if it’s green you’re fine, and if it’s orange it could use a top-off.
7. How do I turn off vibrate?
   • You can’t, at least not yet. There are some in the gaming media who are telling you to open up your unit and destroy it to turn off vibrate. DON’T DO IT. There will definitely be an option in Pokemon Sleep app to turn off vibrate; my guess is that the Niantic engineers working on Pokemon GO weren’t given the API instructions, which explains why this feature doesn’t appear there.