Pokemon Go Plus wristband that helps trainers hunt delayed until September

It isn’t clear why – or whether it means that updates to the game will be delayed, too

Pokemon GO players meet at Sydney Opera House (Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

The Pokemon Go Plus, a wristband that would have made the augmented reality game far easier to play, is going to be delayed.

The wristband was intended as a way of letting people receive notifications on their wrist, when Pokemon were in the area and ready to be caught.

When the game was first unveiled, the wearable accessory seemed to be a central part of it – along with trading and battling, which also haven’t yet been released. It was initially planned to come out in July, but has now been delayed until September.

“Thanks for your patience, Trainers!” wrote Nintendo in a tweet that announced the delay.

It isn’t clear if the delay will also affect updates to the app. It has been presumed that the release of the wristband would also bring an update so that the game could be used in the background, but now that will no longer be necessary.

At the moment, players have to walk around with the app open if they are looking for Pokemon, and keep an eye on the screen. That’s been blamed for many of the problems that have resulted from the popularity of the game, including people distracted while driving or crossing the road.

But the Pokemon Plus would presumably allow people to receive those notifications with the app running in the background, and with their phone in their pocket.

For now, the only way to do that is through third party apps. The biggest of those is PokeNotify, which runs as a separate app that looks through the Pokemon map and tells people that creatures they’re looking for are nearby.