Overclock

Overclocking was an alternate way to glyph hack a portal that could produce as much as four times the regular glyph hack yield.

Note: Overclocking was discontinued as of 11 March 2026.

Portal Eligibility

Only portals which had been calibrated to our reality were eligible to be overclocked. A portal became reality calibrated when it received sufficient portal scans. Calibrated portals were marked in the scanner view with a gold octahedron.

Scanner Eligibility

Only scanners with Niantic Lightship AR enabled were able to overclock portals. This setting could be enabled by visiting the Settings screen.

Multiplier

An overclocked glyph hack could essentially perform multiple hacks at once. The number of hacks consumed by an overclocked hack was equal to the number of hacks remaining for the portal before burnout, or four, whichever was lesser. (This meant that a portal that had four or fewer hacks before burnout would be burned out immediately by a single overclocked hack.) On completing an overclocked hack, the player received all the items and AP for those hacks at once. The number of hacks consumed was expressed as a multiplier and was displayed on the screen when you perform an overclocked hack.

How to Overclock

  1. Move within 20 meters of a calibrated portal. (This is half the usual hack range.)
  2. Tap the portal to open the portal’s information card, then tap the bright gold “Overclock” button to the right of the hack menu.
  3. The command channel will open as with a normal glyph hack, allowing you to enter any desired command glyphs.
  4. Your scanner’s camera will be activated, and you’ll be prompted to move your scanner around to calibrate its view of the portal. When calibration is successful, a dialog will appear informing you of the hack multiplier. Tap “Continue.”
  5. You will be asked to point it in the direction where you want the glyph hack terminal deployed. When you are satisfied with the position, tap “Deploy.”
  6. The “four-dimensional tesseract terminal” will be shown in the augmented reality view, and the glyph hack timer starts counting down.
  7. A glyph will appear traced on the tesseract. Adjust your scanner’s position and orientation as needed to get a clear view of the glyph. The glyph will glow brighter the closer you get to the correct view.
  8. Once you know what the glyph is, tap the glyph hack button near the bottom of the screen.
  9. The traditional glyph hack interface will appear. Trace the glyph as normal.
  10. Repeat the previous three steps for all the glyphs in the sequence.
  11. You will receive the glyph hack rewards, with the overclocking multiplier applied.

History

  • 1 June 2023: The overclock functionality was released.
  • 11 March 2026: The overclock functionality was retired.