What3Words Going Mainstream?

[Lovacott]

It never recekved universal acclaim from the emrgency services and SAR teams, and those that did are starting to drop it for a couple of reasons. Ultimately it does nothing that a lat and long doesn't, and occasionally doesn't even do that. I certainly don't use it.

All of the navigation platforms can locate with a Lat Long input but for the average occasional user, it's gobblygook and they just want to type in envelope stuff like house number and street name.

Logo.Mermaids.Cemented is a lot easier to remember than 51.078, -4.20726

The beauty of the W3W platform and the current advertising campaign, is that it tempts people to download the free app just to find out what three words have been assigned to their front room.

People who wouldn't normally use GPS will be tempted to use GPS.

 

[PaulSB]

The problem is that it simply isn't very accurate which makes it useless. It may well work for 99.9% of the time but when it's wrong? My faith in W3W has been lost in the time it takes to read this thread.

Input the name of my village and it is shown on the satellite image as in a field on the edge of a small group of trees. I know exactly where this location is - 10-15 minutes walk from the village, through a farmyard, through a farm gate and over a stile. Google maps does exactly the same!!

W3W location shows me as two doors down in a neighbour's house. Google maps shows me sat outside my house - which I am.

Input my post code and house number to Google maps and it puts me right outside the house.

 

[oldwheels]

Postcode and house number takes you bang on to my front door but where I work, the postcode takes you half a mile away.

We often have artics delivering to us who overshoot the entrance and have to travel on for 15 miles before they can turn around and come back.

We started using our W3W address after being asked for it by a number of hauliers planning to do drops to us.

It's very simple to use.

Some older software has a glitch which shows my address by postcode in a different street. Newer versions seem to have corrected this. I live in a relatively small community so my address is easily found and I know from experience that ambulances have had no problem finding my address without even postcode. The police on one occasion delivered a letter for somebody else to me as they had not upgraded the software.
This glitch may be why your work deliveries are being misled.

 

[winjim]

W3W How it works!

That doesn't tell you how it works though, which I think is the major issue that people have with it.

 

[Fnaar]

Sounds like a job for @Fnaar

My good friend Miss Goodbody lives at massage/bumps/heavenly*
*😄😄😄 Not really, I made it up for comic effect, but there actually IS one, in Nevada 😄😄😄

 

[newfhouse]

Which three words, surely?

 

[Lovacott]

The problem is that it simply isn't very accurate which makes it useless. It may well work for 99.9% of the time but when it's wrong? My faith in W3W has been lost in the time it takes to read this thread.

Input the name of my village and it is shown on the satellite image as in a field on the edge of a small group of trees. I know exactly where this location is - 10-15 minutes walk from the village, through a farmyard, through a farm gate and over a stile. Google maps does exactly the same!!

W3W location shows me as two doors down in a neighbour's house. Google maps shows me sat outside my house - which I am.

Input my post code and house number to Google maps and it puts me right outside the house.

I think you are missing the point.

If you download the app and pin where you are standing, you will get three words which describe the 3x3m block you are standing in.

If you then pass this location onto someone else, they can navigate to that same 3 x 3m square with 100% accuracy.

The only time it can go wrong is when the three words spoken are not the three words heard.

Cats.Onion.Chair becomes Cat.Onions.Chair (Wallnut Street Illionois becomes the middle of the Colorado River in Bullshead Arizona).

 

[PaulSB]

I don't have much to do today. Out of sheer devilment I have just searched for three more local villages.

Village 1 - middle of a field
Village 2 - in a lodge*
Village 3 - spot on, bang in the centre

* a lodge here is a body of water originally stored for use in a local mill.

After testing four villages including mine I have one correct and three wrong. 25% accuracy is not a great result.

 

[PaulSB]

I think you are missing the point.

If you download the app and pin where you are standing, you will get three words which describe the 3x3m block you are standing in.

If you then pass this location onto someone else, they can navigate to that same 3 x 3m square with 100% accuracy.

The only time it can go wrong is when the three words spoken are not the three words heard.

Cats.Onion.Chair becomes Cat.Onions.Chair (Wallnut Street Illionois becomes the middle of the Colorado River in Bullshead Arizona).

I understand this but it doesn't address the point of accuracy. I checked four locations - it got one correct.

 

[Lovacott]

That doesn't tell you how it works though, which I think is the major issue that people have with it.

It isn't new mapping technology or anything like that.

It's just a simple way of giving a location an easy to remember address other than postal addresses which can be pretty loose at times (like new estate builds which are in the process of being built but don't officially exist yet).

The three words are assigned to a fixed geographic location 3m x 3m and are not reliant on postcodes or house names.

It's no different to typing in a Lat Long location but it's probably easier to remember and it's a bit more fun.

Just for a laugh, download the app and have a walk around your house and see what three words describe each room. I did my dads house today and wobbly.teeth were the first two words which came up.

How did they know?

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Logo.Mermaids.Cemented is a lot easier to remember than 51.078, -4.20726

I think if they removed the plurals it would be better. Your example might be picked up as logo.mermaid.cemented, which is in the middle of Brazil, or logos.mermaids.cemented, which is in South Australia and no use when you need assistance in Bideford.

(edited to fix a typo)

 

[Dag Hammar]

By pure coincidence I did a test of W3W at 11:16 this morning, which is before this thread was started and here is my positive experience. I am on ‘pay as you go‘ on my mobile so have no internet on the phone when out in the open.
I opened the W3W app on my phone and it showed a marker to indicate where I was standing but no background showing any of the squares nor roads/paths so nothing for me to correlate to. I took a screenshot of it so that when I arrived home I could then enter the specific three words onto my iPad which also has the app.
Once back home I did that, entering the 3 words on my iPad that were shown on the screenshot of my phone. It accurately brought up and displayed the precise position of where I was standing earlier today.
Yes, I’m a fan of W3W.

 

[winjim]

It isn't new mapping technology or anything like that.

It's just a simple way of giving a location an easy to remember address other than postal addresses which can be pretty loose at times (like new estate builds which are in the process of being built but don't officially exist yet).

The three words are assigned to a fixed geographic location 3m x 3m and are not reliant on postcodes or house names.

It's no different to typing in a Lat Long location but it's probably easier to remember and it's a bit more fun.

Just for a laugh, download the app and have a walk around your house and see what three words describe each room. I did my dads house today and wobbly.teeth were the first two words which came up.

How did they know?

I know what it is and how to use it, I don't know how it works.

 

[Lovacott]

I understand this but it doesn't address the point of accuracy. I checked four locations - it got one correct.

You've lost me there to be honest?

What is it that you are checking?

If you use the satellite view option on their website and navigate to your 6'x3' garden shed, it will give you three words.

If you write down those three words and use a completely different computer to look them up a week later, it will take you back to exactly the same garden shed.

All W3W is doing is substituting simple groups of words for complex Lat Long numbers. They are not doing the mapping.

 

[Lovacott]

I know what it is and how to use it, I don't know how it works.

It's just a simplified indexing method for using existing mapping technology.

Every dot on the planet has a Lat Long reference and all they've done is assign three words to each dot down to an accuracy of 3m x 3m.

If you choose to navigate using W3W, it opens your preferred navigation platform and inputs the Lat Long garnered from the three words you have input.