How to Use the Dowsing Machine in Pokémon Pokopia and Find Hidden Treasure
How to Use the Dowsing Machine in Pokémon Pokopia and Find Hidden Treasure
Here’s how to get the Dowsing Machine in Pokémon Pokopia and use it alongside certain Pokémon to track down hidden treasure buried underground.
Daniel González · Published: 8 Aug 2026, 11:45
The Dowsing Machine is a special item in Pokémon Pokopia used to find hidden treasure, making it particularly useful for tracking down Lost Relics, fossils, and other unusual materials. In this entry of our guide, we'll explain exactly how to get the Dowsing Machine and how to use it properly to dig up all kinds of rewards.
How to get the Dowsing Machine
The Dowsing Machine is an item that can be obtained fairly early in the game and is guaranteed to appear in the first area, the Withered Wastelands. You'll find it inside a yellow Poké Ball surrounded by rock blocks near the ruins of the area's Pokémon Center. It's located on top of a hill with several broken flights of stairs leading upward, at the spot shown in the image below:
If you've already unlocked Hitmonchan in this biome by creating the Exercise Resting Spot habitat, one of its requests involves obtaining the Dowsing Machine. This request is called "Check What's Up There". Once you've learned the Rock Smash move, you'll be able to destroy the blocks surrounding the Dowsing Machine and pick it up.
Bear in mind that you'll also eventually be able to purchase the Dowsing Machine recipe from PC shops, allowing you to craft additional copies whenever you like at a Workbench using one Pokémetal. However, you only really need one. We recommend always carrying it in your inventory so you have it close at hand.
How to use the Dowsing Machine to find buried items
To use the Dowsing Machine properly, besides having the item itself, you'll need to have a Pokémon accompanying you with the Search specialty. These are the only Pokémon in Pokopia that can help you find buried items while walking alongside you as you hold the Dowsing Machine. Remember that the item won't work properly if a Search Pokémon isn't following you.
Before you begin, we particularly recommend choosing a Search Pokémon that can fly, such as Pidgey, Zubat, Dreepy, or Venomoth. These Pokémon can easily keep up with you and won't fall behind when you're trying to reach high or difficult-to-access locations.
With that said, these are the steps you need to follow to use the Dowsing Machine:
First, select the Dowsing Machine from your inventory so that Ditto holds it.
Then, while walking around, press the A Button to make the Dowsing Machine beep.
If there isn't any treasure nearby, your Search Pokémon will let you know. You'll then need to move somewhere else.
If treasure is nearby, the Search Pokémon will start moving in a particular direction.
The Pokémon will point out the direction you should follow to find the treasure.
Follow the direction indicated by the Pokémon and press the A Button again after moving a short distance so it can continue pointing out the route.
Keep repeating this process until the Search Pokémon stops and tells you that there is treasure beneath its current position.
When this happens, strike the ground beneath the Pokémon to uncover a glowing block containing treasure.
The process is actually fairly simple once you understand it, although it may be a little confusing the first few times. You can use this method as often as you like and in any area of the game, as hidden treasures are generated at random. Simply follow the instructions above and you'll be able to make the most of this unusual feature.
Don't forget that the Pokémon following you during the search can get tired. Remember to bring berries or food to give it whenever it becomes exhausted, allowing it to recover its energy and continue the search.
What treasure can you find with the Dowsing Machine?
The Dowsing Machine in Pokémon Pokopia primarily allows you to find buried treasure hidden inside glowing terrain blocks. The random rewards they contain are therefore the same kinds of items you would normally find inside glowing blocks.
This means that the Dowsing Machine can lead you to the following possible rewards:
Random Lost Relics, which can be either large or small.
Various types of fossils depending on your current area or biome.
You'll never know exactly which of these rewards you'll receive when using the Dowsing Machine until you uncover it. Remember, however, that you can increase the appearance rate of these rare items and Lost Relics by giving food offerings to Mosslax each day.
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