New Pokemon GO radar tracker: The big update

Today Niantic reported a new sort of device that'll appear in Pokemon GO. This device might remind some veteran players of the first iteration of Pokemon GO, a version in which you were able to see how close you were to (or conversely, how far away you were from) any given nearby Pokemon. This new piece of equipment seems as though it may be a sign that Niantic COULD BE bringing elements like that into the future of the game.

First Component

New items in the game were reported by the game's own Professor Willow. He suggested that they're called "Mysterious Components." His journal entry from 10/22/2019 suggested that some Team GO Rocket Grunts were dropping "strange items" when they were defeated in Pokemon battles.

According to the professor, some or all of the Mysterious Components he'd found "seem to be made of some metal alloy" and that they were "cold to the touch." One – shown above – had a glass screen that would "radiate a light-purple color."

The Pokemon Radar System

Another report "written" on the 24th of October by Willow suggested that he'd constructed an "Early Rocket Radar Prototype" – and you'll see that here. This piece of hardware is created – it would seem – by combining together a total of 6 "Mysterious Components" into one big machine.

"I believe that if I can create a functioning prototype of this Rocket Radar, we might be able to use Team GO Rocket's own technology to find out where their hideouts are," said Willow. "While it's relatively easy to find Team GO Rocket Grunts (the PokéStops they hack become noticeably discolored and have a glitch-like appearance), we've had a difficult time finding where the Team GO Rocket Leaders—or even Giovanni—are hiding."

More important than Team Rocket

This system is part of Niantic's future work on radar system work – or what in-game will appear to be a "radar" system – for Pokemon. If what we're seeing here is anything like the Pokemon GO maps with which players have been "cheating" for years – it's going to be a big deal.

The first version of the radar from Team Rocket (or Team GO Rocket, whatever you want to call it) will likely be for that mission only, and for finding the Rocket Grunts only, but the possibility that it could expand to Pokemon of all sorts – that's what's important. That's the thing about which we are pumped!

This would be a big change VS what Niantic's been doing and saying about players in the game re:3rd-party apps and such as recent as August of 2019. Or maybe they were just making way for the future! If anyone's going to tell you where the Pokemon are hidden, it's going to be Niantic!