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Not sure it is going to improve people’s perception of it but Mercedes own a proportion of What Three Words. It links into their Mercedes pro and Mercedes Me systems. Sat nav can be done by saying the 3 words. We got shown how to do it but tbh, I gave up as 99% of people think you are talking out of your backside when you try to explain the system.
Just about all modern smartphones should support Advanced Mobile Location. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location
Google's version is Android Emergency Location Service. https://crisisresponse.google/emergencylocationservice/
When you phone the emergency number, it automatically sends your location to them, using a data SMS. Seems it is now supported by the UK networks, but not sure if the emergency services can actually use it.
emergency info on trailforks app give the latitude, longitude and the number of the emergency services. It also works offline
W3W is brilliant. I can't be arsed describing right now but as a map and navigation geek it readily fills a hole for the smartphone era for universal, offline, precision location pin pointing for people who neither know nor care about grid references or lat/long. Map geeks (me) feel free to continue to use paper and magnetism.
When I first saw this I thought it was interesting but ultimately not too useful and, to be honest, I still think that but the emergency services using it does bump it up a bit.
OS Locate does exactly the same thing and is more open. I guess maybe three words is more accessible than a grid reference but if one works then so should the other.
I keep both apps on my phone and have done for a while.
SARLoc is quite clearly the best when the situation suits it.
Just about all modern smartphones should support Advanced Mobile Location
Was going to say, I'm sure there's a standard or standards in phones already that includes GPS or WiFi position when calling Emergency Services.
W3W looking up position to translate into three words you say over the phone that gets translated back into a position, and costs money to emergency service to use and the words can get misheard.
or
Position automatically sent via SMS with the phone call, no licence cost I assume.
Still, it's got everyone's attention and top trend on twitter now. Good advertising for them.
SARLoc is quite clearly the best when the situation suits it.
Requires the caller to do something and needs data. ALS just gets position and sends a text message with the position when you call 999, as I understand it.
I think the interesting part is emergency services not knowing what to do with location information regardless of format. I had to call mountain rescue and gave them a 10 digit os grid. We had to move to a more sheltered location about 50m away, so I updated them with that.
Where did mountain rescue initially search? A location about 1km away. They were still fast and excellent but clearly someone in the chain didn't think the exact location would be useful to the rescuers on the ground.
It’s not just for emergencies - just one obvious use case. Regarding emergencies AML sounds great but I’d never heard of it until now.
SARLoc requires a data connection - ie. a decent signal (probably 3g/4g) to work AND the user to have credit on their account that permits data. (W3W can apparently do something similar for people who haven’t downloaded the app). It will also require the user to have data turned on for the particular app (browser) it launches. It is definitely not infallible. My kids have W3W on their phone as all they need is to have enough signal to send me a text - and they have hundreds more texts than they ever need. I’ve sent my wife my location in a busy venue! Google maps allows us to share locations but actually a w3w text just works - you don’t need to reteach the other end what to do.
I’m not sure why an emergency service NEEDS to pay - the service is free - if they are choosing to pay presumably it’s because they are gaining something from the integration with their systems. They do make a commitment that if they can no longer provide the service they will release the source code.
Delivering stuff in a 7.5t truck to a postcode that bears no relationship to the dropoff point. I can work with grid references, but your average truck driver or receptionist can't. If you have this, pinpoint the exact spot, share it, open it in Google Maps, etc.
Pffftt...
Just get a Huawei mobile, send a text to anyone, anywhere with the words "Tiananmen Square" and you'll have a Chinese Black Ops team airlifting you off any mountain in the world in about 10 minutes.
Sure, you'll be bound, gagged and unconscious...
But it works and is free.👍
Regarding emergencies AML sounds great but I’d never heard of it until now.
Surprising it's not that well advertised, especially as it's a British innovation and supported by networks in UK.
On Android, to check if it's enabled (should be by default I think) ...
"Turn emergency location service on or off
ELS is turned on by default. You can turn it off or back on at any time.
Open your phone's Settings app.
Tap Security & location.
If you don't see "Security & location," follow the steps for older Android versions.
If you have a work profile, tap Advanced.
Tap Location and then Advanced and then Google Emergency Location Service.
Turn Emergency Location Service on or off."
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3467281?hl=en
^^ Just checked that on my Pixel 3, it is indeed turned on by default. Handy to know that. Not heard of it before this thread.
Being a bit "crashy" on the bike, it could be handy.
So, can someone tell me exactly how SARLOC works?
How do emergency services send a link, if they don’t know you’re lost?
I downloaded the App and it does not make much sense. I’ve also looked to see if I can work it out, but haven’t yet.
@lardman - You ring 999 and ask for help, they now have your phone number so can send a text message to it. That text message contains a link, clicking on that returns a text with your location details.
As above, AML shortcuts the whole process so that when you ring 999 (or whatever your local emergency number is) then your location details are sent automatically.
I envisage a subculture springing up, where people try and collect W3W squares with obscene three-word combos. P!s$.flaps.w@n£. Hmm, can you search for squares with a given combination of words?
LOL Veloviewer tile collection just got more interesting!
You could have some real fun with this: "Hey Donald, see you at https://w3w.co/tiny.hands.trump
later"
Just stumbled upon the old thread. Vaguely remember it at the time but I guess it went no-where back then. Looks like they have a new marketing team
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/what3words/
Also what if you don’t have a smart phone?
You're either too close to death to bother rescuing, or too much of a stubborn Luddite to accept a ride in one of those newfangled helicopters anyway </humour>
They seem to be brilliant at marketing. Any android phone capable of running the app will report your location if you dial 999 without you doing anything. So on Android the life saving bit is pure marketing bullshit. Or am I missing something. I think it's just a way to get you to download the App then start using it to meet your mates on a field
IPhones need ios 11 to report your location when dialing 999. Does that mean older IPhones might benefit?
No idea how to get longdidute layidute or any of that nonsense out of Google maps despite checking. W3w makes it super easy.
W3W fail:
I'm no fan of w3w, so this made me giggle
Now sure how this is a W3W fail. It's evident the callers would have little means of knowing or communicating their position by any traditional method of navigation. The first W3W worked (Lingcove Beck is plausible) but they told the police they'd continue on to Langdale and it was only the second one that whilst mis-communicated, was easily error corrected.
I'm in a mountain rescue team and we were called out three times over the weekend. Two out of those three the caller gave us a location by W3W. The third was to assist ambulance so location wasn't an issue. W3W isn't going to go away and its fine. Our system automatically converts the W3W location into an OS grid ref for us. It is easy for the W3W location to be misheard by the call handler but, as demonstrated in that article, if it is wrong it is likely to be very very wrong so quite obvious.
By default we always send a PhoneFind text, just in case the W3W is wrong or the causality has moved. The good news is that if they have been using W3W then their GPS is turned on on their phone which makes a PhoneFind text much more likely to be successful.
The obvious issue with that article is the contradicting statements from the walkers:
Police contacted Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team at 9.20pm to say the walkers had lost their mobile phone signals, leaving them unable to navigate.
An initial What3words location supplied by the group placed them at Green Hole near the upper reaches of Lingcove Beck. The walkers said they were experienced and uninjured but were wet and cold and did not have enough food and water.
Not that experienced then!
Yeah I read straight through the 'experienced' bit because it's evident they didn't have a paper map or the knowledge to use it. And that's before any further consideration for food, clothing, weather forecasting and escape routes.
Really don't see the point. If you have the means for W3W to work you have a grid reference. Why use the obscurity of this extra layer?
The folk who are likely to use W3W will have limited experience with OS grid references and the means to understand them, add in a stressful situation such as needing a rescue for an injured member suffering exposure and i can see the appeal of such an easy to use app. Obviously it would be better if those out in the hills have the necessary understanding of how to read a map and take a grid reference, or even have the knowledge to use a map on a phone to get a grid reference but when the adrenaline/cortisone rush takes over in an emergency even those who consider themselves experienced can get caught out.
Really don’t see the point. If you have the means for W3W to work you have a grid reference. Why use the obscurity of this extra layer?
Pretty sure that was all talked about a year ago on page 1 when they went on the marketing offensive.
Everyone should have something like this on their phone:
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/os-locate/id810024913
Really don’t see the point.
Because the arguments on here are about using it as an emergency locations service, when that's only really one way of using it. It's simple to use for everyone, so If my daughter and I are i the city centre or whatever, we can send each other a location that's pretty much inch perfect just by text so we can meet up.
But use it or don't use it, it's not the end of the world.
This:
W3W is a closed product. It is a for-profit company masquerading as an open standard. And that annoys me.
It’s a solution in search of a problem. It doesn’t even solve the problem we’ll.
In terms of being useful your phone can equally report your position using a string of numbers based on a pre-existing international standard.
we can send each other a location that’s pretty much inch perfect just by text so we can meet up.
WhatsApp and Google Maps both do live tracking without the need for sending a text. It just opens up a live map within the app and you can see the relevant contacts right there. All they need to have done is share location so in a situation where you can't talk or can't hear a ringtone/text alert (like at a festival or something), you can still meet up even if you're both moving around.
W3W, if you move from the location you've specified, it's near useless unless you're still within sight of it.
sure, there are plenty of ways of doing it. W3W is just a bit of fun for us. there are any number of ways of doing it, why do you care?
What I would give W3W credit for is sucessfully mainstreaming an app that gives emergency servies a quick (and mostly reliable) location. Yes, previous solutions existed but they also relied on user adoption. If you surveyed the average non-experienced mountaineer I would bet that more have W3W or a similar app now than they did 5/10 years ago. Perhaps it's less to do with their algorithm and more to do with their marketing but I think the net result has been positive.
It would be useful if there was an inbuilt check where it could automatically detect if one word is entered wrongly. That way, if emergency services didn't have some other data to immediately flag the error it could still be detected. However, this would obviously reduce the possible permutations and it might have to become What4Words...
your phone can equally report your position using a string of numbers based on a pre-existing international standard
Yeah just like IP addresses for negotiating the web. Oh, hang on.... we use meaningful words don't we. I'm a mega map and navigation geek but the difference is I appreciate that not everyone is, and smartphones and GPS for everyone has fundamentally changed the way navigation can be done.
But it does work and it means that in many cases those of us in MR can get back to our beds quicker, that can only be a good thing.
The one time (in over fifty years of getting out on the hill) that I had to call MRT, it was for a walker who'd sprained her ankle, they used SARLOC. they send you a text, you click on the link in it and it opens up your map application, pinpoints your location and sends it back to them automatically. No app to install, no potential mispronunciation of words.
Something I remember from school is that the national grid ref was originally intended as a post code but I've never seen anything to corroborate this.
The one time (in over fifty years of getting out on the hill) that I had to call MRT
You do know you can use W3W for finding people and things outside of emergencies, right? That just involve a bit of fun, and that's dead simple for everyone to understand?
You keep saying that. There are reasons not to want to support wide adoption, as others have pointed out a long time ago in this thread. Do what you want for fun, it doesn’t negate their points, or mean that they should welcome wider adoption.
Well fair enough, use it or don’t – it’s your choice.
It's not your choice. Emergency services refused to attend a 10 fig grid ref unless someone walked off the hill to get a mobile signal to download W3W...
The bloke with the fractured spine was lying in running water for the 6 hours it took them to get to 5 miles from the hospital and 20m from a major A road.
Have I missed something? Did that actually happen Steve? That’s insane.
Edit: Thinking again, I genuinely can’t believe it. Some links would be welcome.