Audio AR Update, Time For A Watch App Companion?
The latest update has introduced audio AR:
https://ingress.com/news/2-96-2-release-notes/?hl=en
- Added Audio AR and head tracking for Sony’s LinkBuds Series. With Sony's LinkBuds or LinkBuds S connected via Bluetooth and head tracking enabled, when you turn your head to the left or right, your Agent Avatar will also turn to the left or right. You can leave your Scanner in your pocket in Battery Saver Mode and hear where Portals are located near you, giving you more spatial awareness of your surroundings.
Now, as it stands, cool but useless. Especially the line:
"You can leave your Scanner in your pocket in Battery Saver Mode and hear where Portals are located near you, giving you more spatial awareness of your surroundings."
Great, but what's the point of listening to portals and not playing? I think this is personally the best opportunity to bring back the watch app. I used it all the time, secretly hacking my work portal. Having an upgraded version with auto-hacking, ability to key hack etc would be great.
Apple already have a successful watch, and Android has been making great strides to catch up, with Google releasing a new Pixel watch soon as well.
Having a wrist based app will be a great replacement to the never released "Mod Band"
and give us something extra like Pokemon GO players have with the "Go-tcha" wristband.
Comments
+1 I miss the watch app...
Why stop at the watch
https://blog.google/products/google-ar-vr/building-and-testing-helpful-ar-experiences/
Last time I asked, Niantic has no interest in making a watch app. I think ace even replied to someone asking the same question here.
Straight from @ace :
Regardless of it being from 2 years ago, WearOS and any wearable is still a mess on Android. Pixel Watch is definitely not going to help it.
I think a WearOS app would be more useful to agents than more audio "improvements".
or something for the apple watch....
Spatial Audio and head tracking lets you play Ingress without needing to look at your screen as much or as often, so if your phone is in your pocket in Battery Saver Mode or it's mounted to your bicycle, you can hear that there's an enemy Portal nearby and it's to your right, then you can pause to look at your phone and take action instead of walking or biking past it. In addition to visual cues (looking at your screen), now you also have auditory cues (hearing with your ears) so you don't have to only look at your phone screen to get this information.
Similarly, I use my Apple Watch every day and it gives me haptic nudges when I need to take an action, or I can glance at it to see a quick update. But I'm not looking at my watch screen constantly because I don't need to; it's there when I want it.
Sony partnered with Ingress on this feature, and I'm always on the lookout for possible Ingress partners. If there's an Android Wear or watch partner who wants to support this development, please let me know.
Bluetooth sucks battery, a lot, takes away from actual game play time. So does wifi, to improve gps, so much so, it's better to actually turn it off. During a big microfielding AP engine, phone display never off, running Prime, my Note10+ battery will drain from 100% to 20% in 2 hours. That would be faster with any additional radios turned on. Just saying.
Not sure if it would be easy to implement, but would be interesting to have the apple watch nudge you when you're near certain things. Maybe even a filterable list of items. Enemy portals above level 7, friendly portals above level 6, unvisited portal (would be cool if you're in a familiar area, but miss that a new portal joins the network), enemy drone is nearby (would prefer that whole thing be removed, but I'd redirect my direction to send an ENL drone home, lol)
I really don't care about the audio accessories for this game because I put my phone on mute or silent mode when I play it. I find the sounds made by this game and PoGo a bit annoying. Besides, why would I want to attract attention from perverts and stalkers when I play this game?
The whole point in this topic is that you'd be wearing earphones. Sony's, to get the directional thing. The people you're hanging out with wouldn't hear it.
I turn background off and only listen to voice and effects if I have my earphones. I prefer Shokz brand tho - so comfortable, easy to keep up with, and doesn't stick anything in my ear canal. And I can still hear what's going on around me, because my ears are open.
Sounds like an opportunity for a partnership for the Pixel watch :P
Wearing earphones attract attention as well. Besides, why would one buy accessories to enhance the audio experience of a game that has a lot of latency?
Whilst I agree, the “auto catch” and “auto spin” feature aren’t things that the official Pokémon GO items of Pokémon GO Plus & Pokéball Plus do.
That’s just the “Gotcha” type devices which aren’t official.
I would like to see an Ingress app on my Apple Watch for sure where I could see cell scores at a glance, or get notified when I could move my drone etc.
The last company I would approach is Google at this point. They have abandoned Wear OS for years and pretty much Samsung is the only company making it stay relevant.
@NianticBrian Samsung might probably be interested.
Their wear division is always looking to expand into different areas
Huh? Gotcha uses the Plus protocol. The auto spin and auto catch are functions of the Plus and PokeBall Plus.
GO Plus & PokéBall Plus use manual presses to do things.
The other unofficial devices alter what they do a bit and automatically “press” the button.
Another possibility I can think which can be done will be to allow us to map certain portal actions on linkbuds wide area tap feature (Hacks for example) where you will always hack the closest portal base on the proximity you are from the portal.
Though it will be a challenge to decide which portals will be choose in a cluster area as compared to a single portal in the hack radius
More on wide tap feature: https://helpguide.sony.net/mdr/linkbuds/v1/en/contents/TP1000456614.html