"How the game tracks distance in the background, and using it to your advantage"

#PokemonGO: EDIT: I've been responding to almost every comment below so far, but I have to call it quits in a few minutes and go to bed. I promise I'll answer every question tomorrow by 1 PM CST.I saw a couple of weeks ago an interesting... Glitch? Exploit? Regarding the distance recording process. I'm just going to put some of the previous discussions here:Initial thread/discovery:http://ift.tt/2m5Y8bZ thread:http://ift.tt/2ltpRjv to the initial user, he/she/it sent the game to the background (without a Go+), drove to a friend's house, then reopened the app to find a decent amount of distance has been added to their eggs and buddies. After panning it out, testing it myself, and even being able to reproduce it I, think I not only found the explanation and reason for it, but also a way for others to replicate and use themselves in reliable and steady way.Let's go for the basics first. Why does this happen?When the app is in the foreground and focused on by your phone, the game knows your location for as long as it is in the foreground. It tracks your location in real-time and records it every few seconds to calculate for speed, in which it is then cross-checked with the given thresholds to determine what to do next (to add or not to add distance, Pokéstop/sighting locks, "You're going too fast!"). You already know this. But this only happens when PoGo is "in focus." What if it's in the background, without a Go+?As much crap as this game gets, it's actually a bit generous in this regard. When you send PoGo to the background for a whole and bring it back, it will still attempt to calculate your speed (as previously discussed), but under some limitations. The game only knows three things:Your last known locationYour current locationHow much time the app spent in the background.Using those first two points, it can find distance by drawing a straight line between the two, while ignoring the fact you might be potentially going through walls, buildings, private property, etc., and using time can calculate for speed. If the resulting number falls below the "tracking limit" of ~10.5 km/h, then the distance instantly gets added to your eggs and buddy.This first point is crucial. If your commute has a lot of twists and turns, you're still racking up the time elapsed, while your distance may or may not increase as much as you'd think. But this is a good thing.Now onto doing this yourself. You can use Google Maps to draw a straight line between your current location and your destination to find the distance PoGo will use. (Instructions on doing this on desktop, iOS and Android can be found here[Google]) Take your distance (in metric), divide by 10.5 (though I round down to 10 to pad myself, per se) then multiply by 60 to get the least amount of time, in minutes, your game needs to be in the background in order to for your distance to be eligible.Example: I drive to and from school every day. Using Google Maps, the distance between my house and my parking spot is 1.45 kilometers (I have a short commute).1.45 km / 10.5 km/h = 0.138 hours 0.138hrs * 60 minutes = 8.285 minutes, or 8 mins 17.1 seconds. This was my furthest successful try, where depending on the day I can get 1.4-1.5 km after letting the game sit in the background for 9-11 minutes. I have not been able to drive much more than that, let alone test my theory as much.Now that there's some math and method to this, I'd love to see if people can get more consistent with this trick. Try it out whenever you get the chance and see if you can get some distance, because I genuinely want to see what results you guys get. Maybe finding things like maximum possible distance/time? Or maybe there is another speed limit just for this method?Good luck, and happy hunting! via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2mobjWw