Anyways, I’m sure you are all wondering just how you can effectively hatch your eggs? There have been several rumors going around that hatching eggs don’t work the way you think it does. Well, that is correct, most think that it either tracks the distance you’ve walked or follows your GPS (in a sense, it does). People getting frustrated over the fact they walked around in circles for 30-minutes to an hour, and their egg has only moved .5 km, and this is why.
How hatching eggs properly works is it’s a distance, time-based calculation. What this means is, from point A to point B is so far. You can reach it within the game’s reason, the distance traveled will be calculated using your GPD and entered for your eggs. Why walking short distances and even in circles won’t work. At least not that great, is because you are overlapping the distance you have already walked. It then isn’t calculated because of the time frame. With this being said, the best way to hatch eggs is to walk straight. It is different explaining this with words rather than showing, so if it’s confusing, please let me know. If you know a better way of explaining it, also let me know, and I can put it in my words.
Diagram
In other words, here is a diagram I drew which hopefully helps at least a little bit more. For the straight line, the .2km would be added on the next time your phone pings to the servers. As for walking in circles, you will need to either stop halfway, long enough for your eggs to register the distance, then walk the other half, but it would be more beneficial to just walk through the diameter of the circle. Plan for some updates as I get feedback, as of right now, I have heard certain Pokestops only give 10km eggs, and the time your eggs refresh their distance is every 3 minutes. I need as much help as I can get to find the ping times (should be a range of like 2-10 minutes, also depends on your server connectivity) and the theory about the 10 km eggs. If 10ks are only given from certain stops, be sure to keep track of where you get the 10km eggs.
Updates:
So sitting here with my brother, we got into a debate on what would be more efficient if we were able to find a big enough circle that made it worth walking in circles, and here is what we came up with. So we have 2 different size circles; a 1km circle and a 2km circle. We are both speed walkers, so we used the time it takes us to travel down to our Pokestop (.5km), which only takes 4 minutes. This may be hard to understand, but I just got done the math after a few years off from school. I theorized the smaller circle would be more efficient because if it took 8 minutes to finish walking the whole thing. The game would ping twice, both opposite from each other. Meaning you would get the diameter of the circle.
My brother, however, his hypothesis was a circle that took 16 minutes to walk. A 2km circle would be better and yield more distance/time. You would get 4 pings within the full circumference rather than the 2. I swayed a little, then decided, let’s figure it out! In the Picture above (calculations could be wrong), it would be more efficient to find a circle you can hit the opposite side in 4 minutes (the time it takes for the game to ping to the servers). It doesn’t really matter how large the circle is as long as you can reach the other side in 4 minutes.
Is walking in circles pointless?
Now I know what you are all thinking. I said walking in circles was pointless, but I did some thinking and thought it’s not the best way. It can still be done, in fact, it may be better, and here is why. Say you walk 5km in a straight line, and it took you 30 minutes to do so. Well, it would take another 30 minutes to walk back. By that time, you have walked 10km. You are probably pretty tired or out of a drink or whatever, the problem maybe if there is one. However, the distance calculated towards your eggs will be shorter. You could practically take a break any moment and be in the vicinity of your home or vehicle. So far on the 10km eggs only being given from certain stops seems to be legit. Though it could also be due to the scarcity of them, it seems like that theory may be true. The best way to test it is to get a group of people or maybe 15-20, make sure all their eggs are hatched, then just continuously hit 1 stop until everyone’s eggs are full and try that with all surrounding stops or most depending on how many you have. Also, I have heard from several people that it takes 4 minutes for the game to ping back to the servers, and it takes about 6 minutes for the distance actually to be registered. Keep in mind, though, different countries may have different delays, and it also depends on how well you personally are connecting to the game. It could also change if you live out in the country or if you live in a city. It will be hard to know for sure what the relay times are for everyone.
