Winter Survival Guide?
Just want to ask what other people are doing when it's below freezing most of the time with frequent snow / ice?, (I know this doesn't apply to everyone). I have a car and can still somewhat play. Still it challenges my motivation even though I really like the game. So far I've lowered my gym collection from 3-7 to 1-4, reduced the number of Pokemon I try to catch, and reduced poke stop collection.
Answers
I have been playing in conditions down to -8 Centigrade this winter. With proper clothing we can be out for up to an hour at a time.
The challenge is to keep the right-hand warm while still being able to throw Poke balls (touch gloves are a mercy).
Now and then when stop at strategically located restaurants close to Poke stops. We can then replenish Poke balls while having a meal and warming up a bit.
Gym sessions can be problematic. There are a couple of Poke gyms close to where we live where it is possible to park a car within the gym radius. This is an option for quick gym sessions. However, if we are to take down a larger gym (that may take 30 minutes or so) we face the choice between thoroughly violating the 5 minute running engine restriction and sitting still in a freezing cold car.
If pogo biome distribution would have a fair degree of logic you should have an small army of Laprases and a large one of dewongs. But I think I remember someone from north mentioned not even seeing a Lapras.
From around a month ago in here was a small increase in frequency ( catched 2, saw another one, 3 others reported by other trainers) competed to 1 during the autumn.
I've gone on walks in snow and ice for up to three hours, but I haven't tried it below about 28 Fahrenheit. I normally wear a windbreaker over my jacket over my sweatshirt over my shirt on top, and thermals under my pants. I have been wearing a knit hat, but have I just bought a ski mask to go over my mouth and will be trying that out soon too. I also have fairly thin touch screen usable gloves. Right now it's 18 degrees and my husband and I trying to decide whether it's too cold to go out for a walk.
Most gyms around here can be done by car, and we are a lot more likely to do the ones that can be. We do turn off the car while doing them, and it still stays warm enough inside.
Usually it's too cold to do casual walks to catch things/take over gyms (hasn't been above 13F/-10C in about 11 days), but I can catch things with the Pogo+, hit a decent amount of gyms in car, and go after individual nearby things.
I haven't had any luck with conductive gloves. They're all either too thin to keep warm, or too thick to be able to put conductive finger tips on. So if I want to take on a gym while outside, I've found that wearing good gloves and then using a rubber-tipped tablet stylus works pretty well. Hand cramps up after a bit, but that's better than frostbite.
Can be out for up to 3 hours easily in -20C/-4F as long as it's not too windy. Because of Pokemons, I've bought expensive winter hiking boots (3 times what I usually pay for winter boots) and will never buy anything else from now on (so light, warm and confy!). I always had good winter clothes, but lousy boots for walking, so never again. For gloves, I use thin conductive gloves, but the trick is: I ALSO use big winter gloves. So, the hand that hold the phone has two gloves (thin and big) and the hand that spin the balls only the thin one while big glove stay in my pocket. When that hand get too cold (conductive gloves are shitty), I can use my coat pockets or I switch hands/double gloves. Love winter so far, as all the gyms that are not reachable by car stay mine for very long! Even with only 1 to 3 pokemons in them. If only there was no spoofers, I think I could keep some gyms forever. (Sometime, there's no footprints in the snow, yet I lost the gym). No problem at all with the phone in such cold. It was always running too hot anyway in summer, thanks to bad pokemon software!
Not crazy about wet snow, though, winters are REALLY cold here, so we never have that problem. But in your case, a solution could be to use a "transmitter glove" Basically, it's something avid RC guys like myself use in winter, or rain, to protect our transmitter. It's big, but light, so it could be use with a phone if you really want to play in wet snow/ rain
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-transmitter-glove-2-4ghz-neckstrap-ready.html
