When you just don't feel like walking around but really want to play Pokemon Go and try to catch some Pokemon you have thought about ways to try to get around this. One such workaround being touted around on the internet in 2016 and 2017P is installing a Fake GPS App.
We'll run you through a couple of the options below, but be aware, we don't recommend trying this - And you could easily find yourself soft banned or even permanently banned by niantic if you are caught.
A lot of the sites writing about this fake GPS hack may not care about your account with niantic, but we do! And while we are showing you how you can fake your GPS signal to play Pokemon GO - we 100% recommend that you do not try this as the risk of a soft or even permanent ban by Niantic is very real.
For you to execute this cheat, you will need the Pokemon GO app and another app called Fake GPE Joystick. There are other apps which may also work, but this is the app that we used to test this exploit.
Please remember, on Android devices they are many different phones and many different operating systems, so the exact instructions may not work for you, and you may to do some further investigation.
We will also state right now that we do not condone this type of cheating and if caught you do tun the risk of a ban by niantic, so it is entirely up to you.
This method does not require root access, but it does require you to put your phone into developer mode. Instructions that we provide to get out of developer mode may or may not work for you, so beware.
Once setup you should be able to play Pokemon GO with a joystick image overlayed on your playscreen which allows you to navigate in the game as if you are walking around in the real world.
Instructions
Step 1. Download and install both Pokemon Go and FakeGPS JoyStick
Step 2. Go to Settings, scroll down to About Phone, tap that, then tap on 'build number' 7 times, this will activate the developer mode on your devide. We do provide some instructions to get out of developer mode here. But it may not work for you as there are so many different Android phones and operating systems.
Step 3. Go to Settings and select Developer options. Scroll down to 'Select mock location app' and select Fake GPS JoyStick
Step 4. You should also now check in settings that you have your GPS mode set to High Accuracy, you can do this by going to Settings, Location Services abd seetting GPS mode to High accuracy
Step 5. You are now ready to open the Fake GPS JoyStick app, so go ahead and launch it. You will see a map of where you are currently, you can now scroll down to where you want to be and click the map icon on the bottom left to go there. The app will place a marker where you have selected, then just clikc the start button in the right corner.
Step 6. Launch Pokemon GO. you should see an overlay of the joystick on top of the game, you will be able to walk around in the game as it you were there. However, be careful to not go too far too fast, and jumping from location to location quickly may well trigger a ban. Also, you may get a case of elastic banding, where the GPS signal is lost and the game takes you back to your atual location. This is also a ban risk.
So, there you have it, you can make your own decision if you want to try this or not. Hopefully niantic will find a way to stop this method of cheating as it is not really a fair way to play the game.
But to be honest, why play it like this, it's much more fun to get out into the real world and enjoy the fresh air while playing the game as it is meant to be played.
Coming Out of Developer Mode
After playing, you may want ot come out of developer mode, here is how we did it on our device. Go to Manage Apps, select the settings app from that menu and then finding the clear data option. This removed the developer mode option from our device.