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> What3Words has grown rapidly in popularity over the past few years and is used in logistical applications worldwide, including by emergency services It has?

> What3Words has grown rapidly in popularity over the past few years and is used in logistical applications worldwide, including by emergency services It has? It is? I've known about it for many years and even seen billboards by them, yet never seen it used in practice.

croes 3y ago
Especially when you can easily send your exact GPS location if you make an emergency call with your smartphone.
- matkoniecz 3y ago
  Note that GPS can be often unreliable or not precise enough. For example, it would be pretty useful to specify correct side of river/road/railway. Arriving at wrong side may result in needing to do very long detour.
  - dspillett 3y ago
    True, but no pure coordinate encoding system is going to help there. You need the user to be able to read a map of some sort to: 1. first verify that the position reading is accurate at all 2. adjust the reading appropriately 3. note any further navigation issues that could be important to people trying to head towards them (even with a 100% accurate position that could be a problem). The selling point of W3W is neither accuracy nor precision, but the claim that it reduces transcription errors that might send rescuers off in the wrong direction – for instance the difference between OSMAP references 680287 and 680278 putting you on the wrong side of the river with a few mile trip in either direction to get to the other side due to where crossing points are (there are no doubt better examples than this, I arbitrarily picked an example close by where I often run). This claim is disputed by a number of people some of whom make a good case (for instance https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56901363 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56901363) and the fact that W3W has often chosen to respond to criticism with legal slaps instead of technical explanations suggests to me that the criticism is right.
  - croes 3y ago
    And how do you get those 3 words? Don't you need GPS to get the coordinates to translate them to three words?
    - matkoniecz 3y ago
      I am not claiming that 3 words is solving that problem, only that "forward GPS from phone" does not solve it. You will need reporter to describe location.
dspillett 3y ago
It has certainly picked up popularity, or at least use, in certain outdoor communities. I've noticed running events are increasingly noting the W3W address of their registration and start locations for instance, and associations related to emergency services have allowed themselves to be linked to the app (https://www.airambulancesuk.org/news-knowexactlyewhere/ https://www.airambulancesuk.org/news-knowexactlyewhere/ for instance). I thought I'd seen adverts from official emergency bodies mentioning W3W, but a quick search finds nothing mentioning the fact that call-centres have the facility available that isn't directly from W3W, a straight copy from one of their press releases, or a discussion about the system's deficiencies (i.e. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56901363 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56901363), so that might be me having not been cynical enough to identify an astroturf campaign!
acc_297 3y ago
We used it at a remote forestry work camp a year or so ago It was great for the supervisor to just tell everyone 3 words to remember instead of UTC or LATLONG coordinates which I for one probably would not have remembered in an emergency You can kind of shop around for an easy set to remember too if you get a weird set of words you can most likely just take the grid box next to you I’m sure it’s not perfect but it was very convenient for our particular use case

croes 3y ago

Especially when you can easily send your exact GPS location if you make an emergency call with your smartphone.

matkoniecz 3y ago
Note that GPS can be often unreliable or not precise enough. For example, it would be pretty useful to specify correct side of river/road/railway. Arriving at wrong side may result in needing to do very long detour.
- dspillett 3y ago
  True, but no pure coordinate encoding system is going to help there. You need the user to be able to read a map of some sort to: 1. first verify that the position reading is accurate at all 2. adjust the reading appropriately 3. note any further navigation issues that could be important to people trying to head towards them (even with a 100% accurate position that could be a problem). The selling point of W3W is neither accuracy nor precision, but the claim that it reduces transcription errors that might send rescuers off in the wrong direction – for instance the difference between OSMAP references 680287 and 680278 putting you on the wrong side of the river with a few mile trip in either direction to get to the other side due to where crossing points are (there are no doubt better examples than this, I arbitrarily picked an example close by where I often run). This claim is disputed by a number of people some of whom make a good case (for instance https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56901363 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56901363) and the fact that W3W has often chosen to respond to criticism with legal slaps instead of technical explanations suggests to me that the criticism is right.
- croes 3y ago
  And how do you get those 3 words? Don't you need GPS to get the coordinates to translate them to three words?
  - matkoniecz 3y ago
    I am not claiming that 3 words is solving that problem, only that "forward GPS from phone" does not solve it. You will need reporter to describe location.

dspillett 3y ago

It has certainly picked up popularity, or at least use, in certain outdoor communities. I've noticed running events are increasingly noting the W3W address of their registration and start locations for instance, and associations related to emergency services have allowed themselves to be linked to the app (https://www.airambulancesuk.org/news-knowexactlyewhere/ https://www.airambulancesuk.org/news-knowexactlyewhere/ for instance). I thought I'd seen adverts from official emergency bodies mentioning W3W, but a quick search finds nothing mentioning the fact that call-centres have the facility available that isn't directly from W3W, a straight copy from one of their press releases, or a discussion about the system's deficiencies (i.e. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56901363 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56901363), so that might be me having not been cynical enough to identify an astroturf campaign!

acc_297 3y ago

We used it at a remote forestry work camp a year or so ago It was great for the supervisor to just tell everyone 3 words to remember instead of UTC or LATLONG coordinates which I for one probably would not have remembered in an emergency You can kind of shop around for an easy set to remember too if you get a weird set of words you can most likely just take the grid box next to you I’m sure it’s not perfect but it was very convenient for our particular use case