Incense in Pokémon Go is a very valuable item, especially to players located in areas where not a bunch of Pokémon appear. After activating an Incense, you will have a much higher spawn rate in your radius for a limited time. Some Pokémon will not appear without using an Incense in some special cases. If you are using an Incense and suspect it is not working properly, here is how to fix it.
How to fix your Incense not working in Pokémon Go
Walk around
The first tip we have to get your Incense to spawn more Pokémon is to move around. Niantic has changed the functionality of Incense to benefit people who are walking in the game rather than sitting in one spot. If you are stationary, you a Pokémon will spawn from the Incense one time every five minutes. If you are moving, however, one will generate every 30 seconds.
This is a significant nerf that will highly impact your playing from home or if your mobility is impaired. With this in mind, if you want to catch Pokémon in one spot for an extended time, we highly recommend Pokéstop Lures over Incenses. Of course, that requires you to be in a specific area.
Check your time settings
If you are confident that your Incense problems are connected to a bug rather than the game’s updates, it could be connected to your device’s time.
On Android, open your Settings and search for Date and Time or go to General Management and find the section. Ensure that you have Automatic Date and Time turned on so that your network is keeping you in the right spot.
Similarly, on iOS, open Settings and go to General. Open up Date & Time and make sure the Set Automatically is switched on.
Don’t try to use it while using a Daily Adventure Incense
With the addition of Daily Adventure Incense, your regular Incense will not work during the 15 minutes that you have your Daily Adventure Incense active and vice versa. They are mutually exclusive and provide different Pokémon that you can find.
