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That sounds weird. last I head the scottish mountain rescue guys preferred a grid reference.
Am I being thick or does SARLOC / PhoneFind depend on a data connection? Because anyone who spends time in the hills knows that data connections can be a lot harder to get than the capability to make an emergency voice call or text that'll use any bearer and 1 bar of signal - either of which can be used (with risk/limitation) to convey a GR, Lat/Long or (three) words that the relevant apps (OS Locate, W3W, Viewranger, Google Maps) will provide irrespective of a data connection.
Am I being thick or does SARLOC / PhoneFind depend on a data connection?
It needs to be a smartphone, with a connection to the internet and the location services switched on.
Does What3words need all those things as well?
Nope, it works without data or a phone signal. It'll still show you your three word location when you open the app, probably won't load the map though. Might not work under cover.
How do you communicate your location to the emergency services? (Although you’ve been pretty clear you’re using it for other things). How do you know it’s got your location correct?
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.
I don't blame you... we were gobsmacked!
I'm not saying where as at the time there was a bit of fuss and those of us attending didn't mention the location as it's a bit irrelevant except the car park is 20m from a very major A road.
There were several ex forces paramedics (one of whom is married to an ex-A&E doctor from the same local hospital*) and a fully trained MTB coach and guide. He was the one who had to leave the location to download the app. I was the least qualified person there and spent my time ferrying warm clothing and such to and from the cars.
*ironically she retrained as a GP after breaking her back.
That sounds weird. last I head the scottish mountain rescue guys preferred a grid reference.
I'm sure any mountain/lowland or cave rescue would. This wasn't in any mountains (barely a hill) so it was the ambulance service (who I'm also sure can read a map).
What I got TOLD by the guy is he was TOLD on the emergency call that the emergency operator can't use a grid reference. I know him quite well so I tend to believe he didn't go and download the app just for kicks!
That’s nuts.
Who do you communicate your location to the emergency services?
Do you mean "How?" presumably without a phone sig you can't. Although you can connect to 999 on another carriers' sig. But, yeah all phones are a potential point of failure, and true of all these systems, if you've fallen and landed on your phone, and it's bust then SARLOC/location services. W3W all won't work...If you're on your own, it's back to whistle blowing, or in a group it's send one to find a phone/get a sig...just like the olden days...
@stevextc that sounds crazy, was the bloke with the broken back OK eventually? what a nightmare
that sounds crazy, was the bloke with the broken back OK eventually? what a nightmare
TBH never found out.
3 of us had kids with us and by the time the ambulance arrived we were ready to just hand over.
I have no tolerance for an organisation that promotes a protectionist proprietary system under a banner of purported benevolence.
dude, you're on the internet...
No-one is forcing anyone to use any system..jeez, talk about manufactured outrage.
Am I being thick or does SARLOC / PhoneFind depend on a data connection?
It needs to be a smartphone, with a connection to the internet and the location services switched on.
Not correct. Needs to be a smart phone, location services turned on and able to send a text message. Phonefind does not need a data connection as location information is sent via text message
If you’re on your own, it’s back to whistle blowing, or in a group it’s send one to find a phone/get a sig…just like the olden days…
Whistles are good but you should always have a mirror as well.
Whistles are good but you should always have a mirror as well.
Don't forget about flares as well
Don’t forget about flares as well
Don't they get caught in the chain?
hat I got TOLD by the guy is he was TOLD on the emergency call that the emergency operator can’t use a grid reference. I know him quite well so I tend to believe he didn’t go and download the app just for kicks!
Was told the same by a friend involved in a serious accident in the Forest of Dean recently. Boiled my piss that W3W clever sales pitch had convinced the emergency services to bin grid references.
talk about manufactured outrage
I see no such thing. I see a genuine concern that a private propriety initiative might successfully replace the existing locating system we already have. Many a business has made its offering “essential” through ubiquity, and only then sought to use that position for control and profit, which before they took over, no one had. There is also the concern that a system that requires digital location systems (gps/cell triangulation or whatever) becomes the only option, without a “conventional” paper map fallback. Are these valid concerns? I don’t know. Can you use What3Words without using a single company’s API/apps? Can alternative providers supply companies, institutions and individuals the dataset and/or translate to other location systems for you? Or are you locked into the one company? Can that one company decide to block any other company, institution or individual from using the location system? What if it becomes a safety essential, but then they block a company making nav devices, or even printing maps, from using the system? Can they do that? If so, they can get in the sea.
I had a slightly frustrating experience last year. Wasn't a 999 call, but 101 because I had a puncture on a dual carriageway and was asked by the RAC operator to ask for police on scene to cone off to make safe for their guy to do his thing. I got the OS grid ref ready, and the what3words location because I'd heard that they take those. The operator said they couldn't use either, and we had a surreal conversation where they kept saying stuff like "can you see any landmarks, a pub maybe?" and I was saying things like "on the map, find the town Wheatley, and see the A40 near it. There's a bridge over the A40 - that's xxxx Road, I'm on the A40 about 100 M East of that bridge." "Are you near a Mcdonalds?". I assume it's different on the emergency line, but I was a bit surprised that they had no better way of receiving my location. Never mind though, all worked out in the end.
(I would have changed the wheel myself, but the verge was only wide enough for the car itself, and sloping, so definitely not a good idea to be jacking the car up there with no hard shoulder for a buffer! Police and RAC guy all ace, very efficient and nice.)
I don’t think we have binned grid references yet. We get locations via GR, W3W, SARLOC, phone azimuths (sometimes, where appropriate) and good old fashioned names of ridges/gullies/routes. Then work with what we’ve got to figure out where people are.
@gray - conversely the issue you had is a total ball ache for us too. Control rooms always seem to want a postcode or building for their mapping software. Who ever knows the postcode when they’re not at home!!!
Most mapping software will accept a grid reference… that sounds like a human systems problem that could be easily solved internally. Adding What3Words to mapping software requires … what exactly? Who has the control there?
I know 🤷🏻♂️
Ten years ago when control rooms were all local you could tell them it was ‘just past xxx’s house’ and everyone would know where you meant.
By the way, I love the What3Words concept… the combination of memorability and accuracy is totalling missing from other ways of sharing a location… most have one or the other… if it was gifted to the world the way the WWW was, I’d be rubbishing the cautiousness of some towards it. Some of the posts here have made me concerned though.
If only hands.face.space was in Wuhan, China.
No-one is forcing anyone to use any system..
But this is actually the problem..
We're left funding an expensive social engineering product as part of emergency service provision because authorities didn't adopt an open standard and allowed themselves to be manipulated into supporting a proprietary system.
Both Android and iOS automatically send location when making emergency calls, so I'm failing to see the value add of W3W here.
It should not have been left to their initiative anyway. Mobile phone services are licenced, could've put a emergency location service transmitted natively with emergency calls in the service requirements years ago.
Control rooms always seem to want a postcode or building for their mapping software. Who ever knows the postcode when they’re not at home!!!
A few weeks ago, a friend out on a road ride crashed on a descent. She was with others, they phoned the ambulance and they simply would not accept W3W. The operator actually seemed very confused by these three random words being given to her and asked for a postcode - this on a country lane in the middle of nowhere.
Fortunately some local walking their dog came along and gave the postcode of his house and then a United Utilities driver passing the scene stopped to help and his sat nav had a nearby postcode so they gave that too.
Those issue was more that these adverts have convinced people that three words are all you need and you'll have a helicopter overhead in minutes. In practice, the emergency services don't all use it, their in-house software can't convert W3W to a grid ref or postcode and the satnav in the ambulance can only accept a postcode. Maybe they're just more used to operating in towns and villages where postcodes are ubiquitous and easy...?
It's primary use is as a rent extraction device for its owners, if they can gain sufficient market share.
It is utterly useless without their app, uses a non-universal language (English vs maths) and provides zero information about geography. The 3-word identification strings provide not the slightest clue whether two identified points are corners of the same building or literally on opposite sides of the planet (vs LatLong making it obvious that e.g., 52.36N 001.31W is relatively near 51.92N 001.48W), or OS Grid.
It gives zero value to anyone trying to actually navigate, without using their app, and if you are going to navigate with an app, why not use any implementation of OpenStreetMap, or even the nearly ubiquitous Google or Apple maps?
Some temporary convenience for innumerate people is not a good reason to implement a rent-extractive proprietary system.
could’ve put a emergency location service transmitted natively [sic] with emergency calls in the service requirements years ago.
100% agree, but that's not W3W's fault. You can't criticise them for having something that exists to favour something that doesn't. There isn't a standard, and the emergency services clearly aren't working to the same systems anyway. I think the message for me from this discussion is make sure I don't have to rely on any single one of these solutions.
The 3-word identification strings provide not the slightest clue whether two identified points are corners of the same building or literally on opposite sides of the planet
That's deliberate, it's not designed for navigation, it's designed to point to a place. so in that respect it's more like a post-code than a lat/long. If caller says he's in the Black mountains and gives a W3W code and the call handler mishears a word and the system places him in say: Leicester square, then the call-handler knows to check to make sure.
It gives zero value to anyone trying to actually navigate,
It's not a navigation system. There are loads of issues with W3W, and it's shady business model, and I not a "champion" of it other than it's a tool with some utility Use it or don't.
If you do need a postcode a friend of mine wrote this web app: https://www.whatsmypostcode.com/#main
Should give the postcode of your current location (if you have location turned on, and data)
Some temporary convenience for innumerate people is not a good reason to implement a rent-extractive proprietary system.
I'm pretty sure even those evil people at W3W locked in their underground bunker protected by piranha infested pools currently plotting taking over the world are not suggesting for a moment that this one app is intended or designed to replace every single navigational tool or method since the dawn of time, from the sextant to the OS map. Its just a different kind of tool that is potentially more user friendly - and if its more user-friendly it tends to be used more and more accurate.
Consider this scenario...I'm out on a lone bike ride and in the middle of nowhere in the Peak District I have a bike issue I cannot fix by the road side. I call up my wife to pick me up. I have no idea how to tell her were I am or how to get there...I could give her a long and convoluted list of directions and instructions which would stress her out ("he said 3rd left but did he mean this 3rd left which is a dirt track or the 3rd left that is a proper road....")...or I could give her my coordinates then she'd struggle to understand how to plug those into whatever nav tool she uses and could incorrectly type in a wrong number somewhere, or I can just text her or tell her 3 words and she uses the app and gets right to me. Doesn't stress her out and I know that even she can't cock it up and I will get home in time for dinner. Perfect.
I seriously doubt that the emergency services would leave people to die if they didn't embark on a perilous and long journey leaving a wounded person unattended to go and find a signal to down load an app. They might ask you to download the app that and in the meantime despatch a helicopter to go look for you and once you down load the app and tell them the location then great...another bit of information to help locate the injured person. And if all you have is coordinates then give them those and make up some excuse why you can't trek off to download the app...though I'd love to know the stats of how many times people have given duff coordinates to the emergency services and they've lost time looking in the wrong place. With the number of inexperienced weekend warriors heading out into the hills at the weekends its easy for mistakes to be made or coordinates to be misheard over a crap mobile phone line when it's blowing a gale.
It gives zero value to anyone trying to actually navigate, without using their app,
And you can't navigate with coordinates without pandering to those evil industrialists who manufacture maps and compasses and have the audacity to charge you for them. At least the app is free.
Come on...its pretty simple really and its limitations are pretty obvious. just a useful app that is cool to use if you're a yoof trying to meet up with mates in the park in a strange city or if you're a stranded cyclist trying to get your tech illiterate wife to come and pick you up in the middle of the Peak District. I see no evil here. If the emergency services want to adopt it as their preferred location tool then it must have significant merits over other methods. Just download it on your phone as one of the check items before a bit walk in the hills - map, compass, flare, mirror, whistle, emergency blanket, let someone know where you're going and when you'll be back (actually THE most important thing you can do), W3W downloaded on your phone...right, where good to go.
kelvin
Most mapping software will accept a grid reference… that sounds like a human systems problem that could be easily solved internally. Adding What3Words to mapping software requires … what exactly? Who has the control there?
That's the exact problem.
By the way, I love the What3Words concept… the combination of memorability and accuracy is totalling missing from other ways of sharing a location… most have one or the other… if it was gifted to the world the way the WWW was, I’d be rubbishing the cautiousness of some towards it. Some of the posts here have made me concerned though.
The concept of a few words is fine but implementing it is trivial. Any number of reversible algorithms can convert some numbers to some words.
The whole complexity is in making it non-reversible and 100% controlled. The licensing prevents reverse lookups anyway and can prevent emergency services using other systems.
That’s deliberate, it’s not designed for navigation
Yeah, bit of an oversight perhaps.
Our stressed volunteer services main underlying reason for being called out is because people are lost.
They may be hurt as well, they may be trapped due to not being able to read a map or tide tables or be developing hypothermia but ultimately whoever goes to help them has to get there.
Sadly the marketing of W3W gives an impression that not knowing where you are or how to get to safety is fine... don't worry a helicopter will appear magically type thing.
Sadly the marketing of W3W gives an impression that not knowing where you are or how to get to safety is fine… don’t worry a helicopter will appear magically type thing.
Sure, but folk have been calling emergency services since forever while trapped in a snow storm on Snowdon in flip-flops...Lots of folk already think that the helicopter will magically appear in the sky, this is nothing new. If they have a location app, at least the magic helicopter has a better chance of finding them.
It's a tool, nothing more nothing less, people condemning it for not being perfect or for the fact that W3W want to make money from it don't have to use it.
the deliberate not for navigation aspect can be seen in the same light as an md5sum for instance, where the smallest difference gives a completely different end result. a single byte difference in 800gb video file will completely change it's md5sum so you know it is altered. mishear a w3w word gives a completely wrong location so you know it is wrong.
It gives zero value to anyone trying to actually navigate, without using their app,
To be fair to W3W, if you tell it a valid 3-word location and ask to navigate to it, it will do so. Much the same as if you put a valid postcode or grid ref into Google Maps, OS Maps etc, it will also navigate you to it, requiring use of that particular app throughout.
The actual processes going on behind the scenes (settings like walking, cycling, driving, public transport), things like bearings/compass headings etc are never given to you, the app just gets on with it.
Apologies if its already been mentioned but isn't that a massive disadvantage?
Get a grid ref a bit wrong and you'll at least be looking on the right mountain. Mishear a single word in W3W and you'll be the wrong side of the world with no clue where to look?
Offer a free service.
Get everyone to use it to the exclusion of the competition.
Start charging.
It's hardly rocket science. We've just been through it with Strava.
It’s a tool, nothing more nothing less, people condemning it for not being perfect or for the fact that W3W want to make money from it don’t have to use it.
Agree but I don't want a penny of my tax going to fund this garbage. I want to fund something better. I've got plenty of shit mapping ideas the emergency services are welcome to spunk millions on. Sadly I've not got the marketeers or VC backing.
Get a grid ref a bit wrong and you’ll at least be looking on the right mountain. Mishear a single word in W3W and you’ll be the wrong side of the world with no clue where to look?
No, you are assuming you get the last digit of the grid ref wrong. What if I get the first digit wrong? on the leading letters, or mix up Northing and Easting. Or use GPS and miss the - sign for somewhere which could credibly be either side of Grenwich. Or read 5deg35min as 5.35 deg etc etc...
With W3W if I've called the rescue services in Scotland and the words suggest I am in Chile, or I call mountain rescue and the words place me in the indian ocean then you have enough of a "hang on a minute" moment.
Which of these is easy to mix up either hearing a bad line or by mistyping:
NM895188; NN895188; NN891588
cowering.tips.perusing; nurtures.terminal.invent; alien.soothing.clipboard
or these because the formatting on the system displaying to the two users is not identical
56°18′53″N , 005°24′18″W; 56.1853,-5.2418; 56°18.53N, 5°24.18W
cowering.tips.perusing; dispenser.dockers.marriage; rejoiced.echo.sentences
I don't think its the best thing since sliced bread, nor is it a problem that could only be solved like this... but I think if you assume the person receiving your call is competent at handling navigation data you are probably mistaken. e.g. if you give a 10 fig OS Grid Ref to someone who's system is expecting a six fig GR do they know NOT to take just the first six digits?
Agree but I don’t want a penny of my tax going to fund this garbage
Given the amount of emergency services listed on the W3W website. I think that ship has sailed.
Offer a free service.
Get everyone to use it to the exclusion of the competition.
Start charging.
It’s hardly rocket science. We’ve just been through it with Strava.
Indeed, although I heard somewhere when they first started their PR push that the revenue stream was not expected to be the emergency services, they are just the vehicle to getting the PR and maximising install base. The $$$ were to come from trying to get mail/deliveries switching to using this stuff. I can see some merit in that, 1/2 the navigation systems in the world take my postcode, street, house number to about 100yds from my actual house (as crow flies) but 500 yds driving (and I live in a town). How much time must FedEx, DHL etc waste finding the right house, and the right entrance to commercial premises etc.
exactly. It's their entire business model. Keep it free for occasional users & emergency services/charities but charge anyone putting hundreds/thousands of API calls through the system per day (on their website they mention Mercedes but obviously parcel companies could really benefit too as mentioned above)Indeed, although I heard somewhere when they first started their PR push that the revenue stream was not expected to be the emergency services, they are just the vehicle to getting the PR and maximising install base.
To use W3W I have to use their app, its no more/less hassle to use the OS locate app instead.
Is W3W really any easier to use than this? The examples you've given show words with a huge potential for spelling errors.
Is W3W really any easier to use than this?
Not for some-one who's used to being in remote places it isn't, but for the occasional aforementioned Snowdon Flip-flopper, they probs won't download OS locate, but they might have W3W already, and any dumb fool can recite three words, but they might not know what a grid ref is,
If the Snowdon Flip flop wearer and the MRT team have the same info, then the rescue will be safer for everyone. If you want to give them a Grid Ref, I'm sure they'd find you just as easily. Who cares?
@johnnystorm - you're far too close to Keighley.... run whilst you can!
Although I have OS Locate on my phone, I find the elevation to nearly always be wrong. The easting/northings are usually pretty much spot on though