Pokémon Go's smart Plus accessory goes on sale next Friday

To those dedicated Pokémon Go players still chasing creatures with their smartphones, help will come sooner than you think -- for a price, of course.

The Pokemon Go Plus, a smart accessory that connects to your phone with Bluetooth, is going on sale Sept. 16, Niantic Labs announced Thursday night. The $34.99 accessory might seem like a bit much for a free-to-play game, so it hinges on the promise of rarely having to take your phone out of your pocket to play (most of the time, at least).

The Plus alerts players to when Pokémon are nearby with both blinking lights and vibrations. They'll be able to catch them with a click of a button and continue walking, Niantic promises. The same goes for collecting items at PokéStops; the Plus will vibrate and light up, and you can tap the screen to pick up items.

As the Plus connects to your phone just like a fitness device, we can assume its also good for hatching eggs as well.

Niantic announced many of the Pokémon Go Plus' features would also be available on the version of the app coming to the Apple Watch later this year, with one notable difference: You'll still need to pull out your phone to actually catch Pokémon when using Apple Watch. That smartwatch tie-in was announced Wednesday during Apple's iPhone 7 event, where Niantic also revealed the game had been downloaded 500 million times around the world since launch.

Nintendo actually helped with the Pokémon Go Plus development, and revealed more details about it at E3. Originally the device was scheduled to come out in July, but then was pushed back to a September release.

Watch Nintendo's E3 presentation below if you want more info on the Plus.