what3words

[Con Hennekens]

I had to look it up because I never heard of that before.
Having read the website I really don't understand the benefit of it.
What am I missing?

[Nick Carthew]

@Con-Hennekens It is considered that using 3 words is easier and therefore less chance of making mistakes compared to using latitude and longitude coordinates.

[Steve Lynch]

@Con-Hennekens

The whole planet is cut into 3 Metre Squares and assigned 3 unique words to represent that unique 3 metre square.

I believe some of the emergency services use it in the UK.

[Con Hennekens]

@Nick-Carthew said in what3words:

@Con-Hennekens It is considered that using 3 words is easier and therefore less chance of making mistakes compared to using latitude and longitude coordinates.

So probably worthwhile especially for offroad (read: address-less locations)?

@Steve-Lynch said in what3words:

I believe some of the emergency services use it in the UK.

Yeah I can imagine it is easier to give a a location orally through 3 words rather than 14 figures indeed.

[Steve Lynch]

@Con-Hennekens

“So probably worthwhile especially for offroad (read: address-less locations)?”

Actually that’s a perfect example that I never even considered.

[Nick Carthew]

I would imagine that there would be a cost implication for using What 3Words. That would need careful consideration before adding it to MRA Navigation Next.

[Steve Lynch]

@Nick-Carthew

As the What3Words App is free to use on iOS and Android in theory it can still be used for those address-less locations without embedding it in MRA.

[MyRoute-app community]

I've seen this suggestion pop-up now and again. I'm familiar with the idea; during an overhaul of the off-road functionality in the online route planner we'll definitely look at this. We're very aware of the popularity.

[Andrew Ross]

@Timo-Martosatiman-MRA

TLDR; use W3W alongside other more accurate positioning methods - especially in emergency.

Whilst I fully support using W3W - it certainly has its uses - be aware that it’s also particularly temperamental and should be used alongside other grid references - especially in an emergency.

The app itself can give you numerous ‘3 word’ references while the GPS settles (and on my iPhone it never seems to stop) and being part of SAR this can prove more challenging when trying to find someone.

While is some cases it may be easier to give ‘words’ rather than numbers there are some easily confusable words in nearby locations and spelling, particularly for those that suffer with Dyslexia, can prove difficult. Eg: circle.goal.leader and circle.goal.leaders are less than 2km apart along the River Thames.

Some more info on the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56901363

[Jabp]

@Andrew-Ross
I use W3W all the time. I store (favourite / important) location within the W3W app. The W3W app allows you to open and navigate in your default (or chosen) navigation app. The navigation app company just needs to incorporate the W3W API (provided by W3) in their app for it to work. And it allows you to navigate much more accurately to any point than Post Codes (which were never designed for navigation use).

There are points that are 3 word similar that are not very far apart but.... this is not really a problem in real use. And the number of close locations with similar 3 words is very low. I, personally, have never given a location verbally - the 3 word location is almost always given by sharing (message, email etc etc) so is a copy and paste action. Therefore it avoids the dyslexia / mistyped / misheard errors. I suppose you might pass it verbally to the emergency services but hopefully the chance of sending someone to a wrong location (like the 2 on the Thames river) is minute. Most of the time the error will be huge (Alaska vice Amsterdam) and therefore obvious.

[sudolea]

@Andrew-Ross said in what3words:

...
While is some cases it may be easier to give ‘words’ rather than numbers there are some easily confusable words in nearby locations and spelling, particularly for those that suffer with Dyslexia, can prove difficult. Eg: circle.goal.leader and circle.goal.leaders are less than 2km apart along the River Thames.

Some more info on the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56901363

I can imagine that some people won't always distinguish a GPS location in decimal form from the same location in its latitude/longitude form. Also then, the distance between these 2 isn't necessarily big (far away from each other).

And confusion could also arise when mispronouncing or misunderstanding "first" and "third". Or when miscounting, like e.g. "after having crossed the bridge, was it the fifth or the sixth street on the right side".

So in my opinion, this W3W system can also have its benefits.

[Andrew Ross]

@sudolea @Jabp All good points - and I don't mean to discount W3W at all. If it's in additional to other ways of specifying a location I'm all for adding it. I guess it depends on what experience you've had of it - and I've had really mixed experiences.