Review: Pocket Auto Catch ND – Feature-Rich Pokémon GO Accessory with a Few Catches

At this point, the automatic catcher is no longer a new product. Pokémon GO community. These pocket-sized devices often catch ‘mon and spin PokéStops while you’re minding other things, leaving you to focus on Battles, upgrades, and Raids whenever you return to the app.

Niantic has its own set of companion devices as the name suggests. Pokémon GO Plus+but the third party market is huge, with each developer trying to add tricks to make their product the best (no one has ever done that).

And so we get to Automatic bag catching NDThe latest Pokémon GO assistant from BrookGaming — the team behind last year’s little megahit The ‘light’ model. It can catch Pokémon and spin PokéStops just like any other option, but it also integrates a handy auto-reconnect feature and a quick auto-tapping feature for raids and battles.

All that comes with it $60 — a step up from Niantic’s official product, but not the most expensive option out there. But there are a few things to keep in mind. Auto-reconnect is still a pain in the ass, the auto-catch options are still limited to standard Pokéballs and the multi-button design seems unnecessarily complicated compared to the simplicity of other designs on the market. Catching them all might be easy, but that’s not where Pokémon GO is perfect.

Let’s start with that design. With its hexagonal shape, seven face buttons and two ‘bumpers’, the ND is one of the busiest-looking auto focusers on the market; it wouldn’t look out of place in a spy kids movie. The ND is a little soft and the buttons are a little mushy for our tastes, but it’s small enough to fit in a back pocket so you don’t demand to look at it all the time (although there is a wrist strap included in the box so you Maybe (if you want, display it).

Buttons help navigate modes, control touch inputs (more on that later), or light up when auto-capture succeeds/fails. They also make each command seem more complicated than it actually is due to the number of input options available to us—especially when you consider that most other auto-capture devices only require one or two button presses. What is often achieved with a single button press requires a combination of multiple button holds, flashing lights, and well-timed inputs. The standard auto-capture modes are easy to access, but it takes an unnecessary amount of time to access any of the ND’s special features at first.

Likewise, bucking the trend, there’s no USB-C charging. The Auto Catch ND runs on two AAA batteries, and while it boasts up to 185 hours of continuous playtime for those who want to use it, non-stop (about 30 days with 3-4 hours of use per day), the lack of a charging option feels like a step backwards by modern standards.

In the header add-on: auto-reconnect (or “SmartConnect” to call it “official” in this case). Perhaps the biggest issue with Niantic’s official services is how the device will automatically disconnect after an hour of use, losing the means of auto-connecting while you’re away.

Similar things to PhotoFast 247 Catcher and its own BrookGaming iRecatcher Bag has come up with alternatives to the dreaded disconnection in the form of peripherals that attach to the screen and poke the machine to automatically catch it when it dozes off. These get the job done, but the bulky accessories and the requirement that the screen be constantly on are hardly ideal in the long run.

ND offers a slightly more elegant solution. Rather than manually pressing the reconnect icon via a dockable device, this auto-catch uses iOS’s ‘AssistiveTouch’ (or Android equivalent) to keep everything online. But the setup process is a bit of a pain; you have to find the necessary options in your phone’s settings before performing a series of button combinations on the ND device and using the face buttons to navigate the on-screen cursor over the reconnect icon.

Once it’s up and running, however, you can comfortably set the device aside and watch the reconnect icon automatically turn on every hour without fear of anything falling out, becoming detached, or falling off.

Like the auto-reconnect solutions mentioned above, ND’s ‘SmartConnect’ mode requires the screen to be on at all times. Fortunately, unlike the Pocket iRecatcher, this alternative leaves your phone’s charging port free, so battery drain isn’t a concern if you want to leave auto-catch on while you work, cook, or do anything other than play Pokémon GO. But if you want to take it out and auto-catch while you’re traveling, a portable charger is a must (the relatively good iPhone 12 we used for this review lasted about four hours before needing a charge).

Of course, the ‘SmartConnect’ function is completely optional, and the ND works just as well as a standard auto-catcher if you don’t set the mode up in the first place. The basic auto-catch and PokéStop spins are as hands-free as you’d expect from a device with ‘Auto Catch’ in the name, and the ‘QuickConnect’ button makes it easy to switch to ‘Smart Connect’ if you want to take a break.

Like many third-party alternatives, ND will only attempt to catch encounters with a standard Poké Ball, so encounters aren’t guaranteed to be successful. Niantic’s Pokémon GO Plus+ allows you to change the default Poké Ball used when pressing the button, but there’s no ripe The buttons here also offer a similar elegance.

But it’s not just negative comparisons that separate ND from Niantic’s offering. As we saw with the Pocket iRecatcher, ND has a ‘HyperTap’ mode that uses the same AssistiveTouch solution as ‘SmartConnect’ to quickly tap a spot on the screen up to eight times a second. Naturally, this makes Battles and Raids a breeze, and you can even program the directional buttons to tap other on-screen coordinates for seamless special attacks.

Pocket Auto Catch ND Review – Verdict

At $60, BrookGaming’s Pocket Auto Catch ND still feels a bit more expensive than we’d like, but it does have some nice extra features. The SmartConnect option, while still quite a few annoying issues, is the easiest auto-reconnect tool we’ve tried so far, and the customizable HyperTap is a welcome addition for anyone looking to get into Raids and Battles. Things may feel unnecessarily complicated due to the ND’s excessive button count (we won’t be throwing away the tutorial anytime soon), and the inability to auto-catch with anything other than a standard Pokéball leads to more failed encounters than we’d like, but it’s still one of the most feature-rich options you can find on the market today.