Exclusive: Google and Pokemon built a Soli demo game for Pixel 4 [Video]

Dylan Roussel | Oct 2 2019 - 12:59 pm PT

Google and The Pokemon Company jointly built a Soli/Motion Sense demo app for the Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, Pokemon Wave Hello, as you can see in the screenshots below that 9to5Google has exclusively obtained. The app is not a full-fledged game, but rather a quick demo to show how the Pixel 4’s new air gesture features work…

Pokemon Wave Hello allows you to learn your way around the device by doing some gestures with the Pixel 4’s Soli radar sensor, and what better way to do that than with Pokemon?

As we discovered in testing the app, if Soli is not available, you can directly use these gestures by tapping on the screen instead. The test isn’t long. All you do is play with 5 different Pokémon (Pikachu, Scorbunny, Sobble, Grookey, and Eevee). After your training is done, you can choose one of these Pokémon, play with them again, and see some details about them. In the settings, you can choose to start over, select a Pokémon or enable and disable the audio.

On top of that, this Pokemon Wave Hello demo likely serves as a promotional app for Pokémon Sword and Shield. That game was announced in February and is set to be released on November 15th on the Nintendo Switch.

We’re not sure whether Pokemon Wave Hello (or a variant of it) will ever be available for Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL on the Play Store, but it should serve as an excellent demo to help buyers understand how Soli works. Check out the app and a video of it in action below:

We’re expecting to see lots of new products announced at Google’s 10/15 event in New York City — it’s not just Pixel 4. We’re also expecting the company to show off a 2nd generation of its Nest Mini smart speaker, a new Nest Wifi, a Pixelbook Go laptop, and some new Pixel Buds as well. Here’s a video showing Pokemon Wave Hello on Pixel 4 in action: