What3words

[anonymous-user]

Shakermaker said:

Riley Blue said:

keirik said:

It must be a Wales thing, we have 3 houses within 100 yards, all number 1, with a slight variation of the street name.

Its a nightmare getting stuff delivered.

Same here. We are number 6 with another around the corner we are on and a third even closer off a T-junction round the same corner. Delivery drivers are forever ringing our bell as we're the most obvious number 6 and those delivering to us can't find us as our 'street name' refers only to six houses on a road with an entirely different name. All three houses have the same postcode and the same OS six-figure reference which, as i posted earlier, is very inaccurate.

My friend lives on a new development but her house lies on a point where 3 roads intersect.

Her house is Number 2 Smith Road, and it is a semi-detached house. But the house it is adjoined to is actually part of a different road, and it also Number 2 Kiln Way. Walk the other way out of her house and you're on a different road again, where believe it or not, the next house is Number 2 Smith Court.

They probably all have the same postcode too.

That’s where these new geolocation systems work well, they can be used for such a wide variety of applications.

[anonymous-user]

My home’s a bit weird

monkey.cure.zebra

[Bill]

El stovey said:

My home’s a bit weird

monkey.cure.zebra

[Mr Pointy]

In a neat conjunction of two threads someone started posting the location of potholes he thinks the council should look at on the local FB group using the W3W location.

[Shakermaker]

El stovey said:

My home’s a bit weird

monkey.cure.zebra

I prefer your holiday home at dragon.strutting.bounded

[Evanivitch]

keirik said:

It must be a Wales thing, we have 3 houses within 100 yards, all number 1, with a slight variation of the street name.

Its a nightmare getting stuff delivered.


Plus the numbering goes 1,5,7,8,15,17,18

We have the same issue, same road but with houses grouped as terraces or cottages. In my villages shirt stretch there's at least three #1 within 150m.

[FiF]

Place where the streetlight is up against the holiday home side wall is ///landlady.pylons.against

[silentbrown]

LeoSayer said:

I wonder if the app avoid words that sound the same but have different spelling eg. hear here, there their, write right rite etc.

It seems to, but it does distinguish between plurals and verb endings. so "kicked.converge.soccer" and "kicked.converged.soccer" are both valid and different locations.

[rscott]

silentbrown said:

LeoSayer said:

I wonder if the app avoid words that sound the same but have different spelling eg. hear here, there their, write right rite etc.

It seems to, but it does distinguish between plurals and verb endings. so "kicked.converge.soccer" and "kicked.converged.soccer" are both valid and different locations.

They're wildly different locations, which presumably helps catch errors in communicating w3w locations.

[FiF]

rscott said:

silentbrown said:

LeoSayer said:

I wonder if the app avoid words that sound the same but have different spelling eg. hear here, there their, write right rite etc.

It seems to, but it does distinguish between plurals and verb endings. so "kicked.converge.soccer" and "kicked.converged.soccer" are both valid and different locations.

They're wildly different locations, which presumably helps catch errors in communicating w3w locations.

Also helped by it throwing up possible alternatives as you type.

[ecsrobin]

CrutyRammers said:

Indeed, the ambulance (round here at least) won't do grid references at all, only postcodes.
There is, IMO, too much required knowledge to use the emergency services. Why do I have to know to call for police if I want mountain rescue? Why can't I use grid refs, gps co-ordinates, or whatever I have to hand for any of them? In an emergency, the last thing you need is to have to have learnt which service uses which thing and which communications networks they share. So I can see that w3w could help here.

Ambulance like to work in Postcodes, Fire I believe is also postcode. Police prefer eastings and northings but will take grid reference and coastguard will take last long, grid, eastings northings and postcode.

The problem with W3W is that you need to download an app, for regular users of the outdoors you’re likely able to give a grid/lat long so it’s pointless and they won’t download it.

For those who are infrequent users and don’t take a map they also probably aren’t aware of the app. However this isn’t a problem. Police/ambulance controls all have access to the mountain rescue teams via a computer system and paging system the teams have a system called sarloc which will send a text you click the link and it puts a pin on the map for all to see. Even if you know your position it’s likely they’ll sarloc you anyway.

I see W3W being more useful for delivery companies than emergency services.

[Mojooo]

You can get your 3 words on their website without an app.

I suspect it will take off massively and in theory its a good idea but i see the downsides with it being commercial

[CrutyRammers]

ecsrobin said:

Ambulance like to work in Postcodes, Fire I believe is also postcode. Police prefer eastings and northings but will take grid reference and coastguard will take last long, grid, eastings northings and postcode.

The problem with W3W is that you need to download an app, for regular users of the outdoors you’re likely able to give a grid/lat long so it’s pointless and they won’t download it.

For those who are infrequent users and don’t take a map they also probably aren’t aware of the app. However this isn’t a problem. Police/ambulance controls all have access to the mountain rescue teams via a computer system and paging system the teams have a system called sarloc which will send a text you click the link and it puts a pin on the map for all to see. Even if you know your position it’s likely they’ll sarloc you anyway.

I see W3W being more useful for delivery companies than emergency services.

My point was that it shouldn't matter,in this day and age, what they like to work in. They should be able to understand whatever format of coordinates the caller has to hand.

[ecsrobin]

Mojooo said:

You can get your 3 words on their website without an app.

I suspect it will take off massively and in theory its a good idea but i see the downsides with it being commercial

I’m sure the police would much prefer someone to call them and they work out where they are (by sarloc for instance) than waste battery trying to load a website to locate themselves.

Again it still relies on someone knowing and remembering about the system. I’d say it’s far more useful people knowing how to access their position on their phone or maybe control room operators being trained to tell someone how to find that information on their phone.

For instance on an iPhone you load the preinstalled compass app and it gives you a Lat and Long. No need for an app or website.

[ecsrobin]

CrutyRammers said:

My point was that it shouldn't matter,in this day and age, what they like to work in. They should be able to understand whatever format of coordinates the caller has to hand.

Completely agree however when services created their computer systems they obviously didn’t tick the box for various formats. So until each individual service/region update their systems you’re a bit stuck unless you use an interim piece of software to bridge the capability gap.

Of course there’s now the introduction of W3W say fire have just upgraded their system and ticked all the boxes for LL, Grid, East/North, postcode, place name then it’s still going to be years before they can accept W3W unless it’s easy to programme in to their new software.

Edited by ecsrobin on Monday 26th August 11:52

[Mothersruin]

CrutyRammers said:

ecsrobin said:

Ambulance like to work in Postcodes, Fire I believe is also postcode. Police prefer eastings and northings but will take grid reference and coastguard will take last long, grid, eastings northings and postcode.

The problem with W3W is that you need to download an app, for regular users of the outdoors you’re likely able to give a grid/lat long so it’s pointless and they won’t download it.

For those who are infrequent users and don’t take a map they also probably aren’t aware of the app. However this isn’t a problem. Police/ambulance controls all have access to the mountain rescue teams via a computer system and paging system the teams have a system called sarloc which will send a text you click the link and it puts a pin on the map for all to see. Even if you know your position it’s likely they’ll sarloc you anyway.

I see W3W being more useful for delivery companies than emergency services.

My point was that it shouldn't matter,in this day and age, what they like to work in. They should be able to understand whatever format of coordinates the caller has to hand.

Mountain Rescue here, only had one W3W associated call out so far. It was wrong, we sarlocked, that was correct. The misper gave us the wrong spelling via a mate somewhere else.

Maybe the next one will be correct.

[ric p]

Work with both Police and Coastguard and have experience of Ambulance in the SW. You are correct in that Police / Fire / Ambulance will use lat/long or OSGB but ideally a postcode. Although the accuracy of the latter suffers in the more rural areas.

However all these emergency services are now able to take and use or translate what3words. And have done successfully. This can then be passed as is or in another format to the appropriate responder, be it ambulance, helicopter, vehicle etc.

If you have a mobile signal, it will give greater accuracy than a 6 figure grid and, if sent in written format rather than spoken, it leaves no room for error for those who find map-work challenging. Easy for those of the smartphone generation.

Edited by ric p on Monday 26th August 14:24

Edited by ric p on Monday 26th August 14:25

[ecsrobin]

ric p said:

Work with both Police and Coastguard and have experience of Ambulance in the SW. You are correct in that Police / Fire / Ambulance will use lat/long or OSGB but ideally a postcode. Although the accuracy of the latter suffers in the more rural areas.

However all these emergency services are now able to take and use or translate what3words. And have done successfully. This can then be passed as is or in another format to the appropriate responder, be it ambulance, helicopter, vehicle etc.

If you have a mobile signal, it will give greater accuracy than a 6 figure grid and, if sent in written format rather than spoken, it leaves no room for error for those who find map-work challenging. Easy for those of the smartphone generation.

As I mentioned previously though you’re reliant on someone already having that software downloaded or knowing that the website exists. Most phones that are able to use the software or load a website already have gps coordinates available and just requires the user to know where to find them.

From experience just because someone says they are there it doesn’t mean they are in a distress situation it’s easy to misread something and that is why sarloc is a great tool as confirmed by the MRT member above.

Better education to phone users and maybe a quick guide to control room staff of popular mobiles and how to find their more accurate gps info is what’s needed not a whole new system?

With regards to accuracy a 6 figure grid is more than suitable 100m really isn’t that much indeed I’ve just fired up W3W on cellular and it’s bouncing around constantly within a box of 40 squares which is exactly the same accuracy as the inbuilt compass on my iPhone and from OS locate.

What W3W is good for is if you know where you are already and can narrow down the area like an urban area.

[ric p]

ecsrobin said:

As I mentioned previously though you’re reliant on someone already having that software downloaded or knowing that the website exists. Most phones that are able to use the software or load a website already have gps coordinates available and just requires the user to know where to find them.

From experience just because someone says they are there it doesn’t mean they are in a distress situation it’s easy to misread something and that is why sarloc is a great tool as confirmed by the MRT member above.

Better education to phone users and maybe a quick guide to control room staff of popular mobiles and how to find their more accurate gps info is what’s needed not a whole new system?

With regards to accuracy a 6 figure grid is more than suitable 100m really isn’t that much indeed I’ve just fired up W3W on cellular and it’s bouncing around constantly within a box of 40 squares which is exactly the same accuracy as the inbuilt compass on my iPhone and from OS locate.

What W3W is good for is if you know where you are already and can narrow down the area like an urban area.

I take your point, Rob. However currently sat on standby at Exeter airport and we have a visitor from Coastguard with us today. For them, most locations between ambulance and themselves are passed by what3words now as all units have the ability to translate and then use the facility to track to that location.

SARloc is great but like w3w, it still requires user response to send back the location. If the individual is able to use the w3w share facility, it is much more robust than trying to talk a stressed individual through the settings on a phone. And they still have to correctly read out the lat/long correctly.

As for accuracy, a 3x3m box, ie 9 square metres is an much quicker search at night or in woodland than a 100 x 100 m box of 10,000 square metres. Your 40 w3w squares are only 360 square metres.

Of course none of this works if either the app is not installed or the phone is dead. It is just another tool in the tool box. We, as a ground or air asset, can use any format in reality.

[Saleen836]

Someone has written a blog on the subject of W3W...
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/03/why-bother-with-w...

Edited by Saleen836 on Monday 26th August 22:08