what 3 words

[rafletcher]

People seem to be suggesting using 6 figure grid references as a preference.

Yep, because it's unique.

[citoyen]

I missed a letter out at the beginning!!

And that's why you've ended up in the middle of Outer Mongolia rather than where you wanted to be!

[Cudzoziemiec]

I think for emergency situations Nutty's hit the main problem. It's not that w3w is crap or that grid references are confusable or that people don't know post codes or can't look at a street name, it's that the emergency operators don't seem to be flexible in what location systems they can take. If you've got any one of those, that should be good. If you've got another for back up, even better.

[nuttycyclist]

The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

Hello coastguard, my location is https://what3words.com/sensual.hissy.semantic but I have no signal.  I am taking on water.

[grams]

Of the billions of 3m squares there are a handful with neighbours but a few miles away with similar names.

That's the propaganda.

The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

This is the real solution. It's scandalous that it doesn't work routinely.

[Pingu]

...The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

What smart phone?

[Cudzoziemiec]

The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

This is the real solution. It's scandalous that it doesn't work routinely.

The Wikipedia page implies it is activated automatically on making an emergency call.

AML automatically turns on Wi-Fi and location services on the handset, collects and computes location data, then sends an SMS to the emergency services containing the caller's location, before turning location services and Wi-Fi off again.[13]

assuming the call is made from an appropriately equipped phone, which is probably most of them in Europe by now:

Google announced in July 2016 that all Android phones running version 2.3.7, Gingerbread (released in December 2010) or later include AML. Google calls their implementation Emergency Location Service (ELS).[5]

Apple devices running iOS 11.3 (released in March 2018) or later also support AML.[6]

Of course that might be wrong. And it doesn't guarantee the emergency operator and/or services will know what to do with it (nor does it say in what form the location is sent).

[grams]

I've heard it's the last mile getting the data to the emergency services operator's screen that's the problem. It's easier to have everyone on the planet install the w3w app.

[Davef]

...The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

What smart phone?

If you are asking about what types of smart phone have this enabled, apple for a couple of years. Don’t know about android but I would expect so if it is recent.

[Kim]

Solution looking for monetisation.

The business model of selling superficially impressive technology to managers with limited technical thinking is a sound one.

But more I think about it, the more shortsighted it seems.  Coordinate systems' usefulness depends on everyone being able to decode them.  Yet W3W's core business hinges on rabidly protecting the intellectual property that's needed to do so, in the face of an internet of extremely competent hackers whose motivation to reverse-engineer it is directly proportional to the proliferation of W3W addresses.  In that environment, the best way to make money is to licence W3W to a small number of high-paying customers, and hope that nobody actually uses it.

Selling it to emergency services would seem ideal in that respect, but they seem to have either done slightly too good a job on the marketing, or emergency services are a lot less competent than we all assumed, and they've leapt on W3W as the end-all solution to pinpointing arbitrary locations on maps as if they didn't have several perfectly good ones already.

[Davef]

People seem to be suggesting using 6 figure grid references as a preference.

Yep, because it's unique.

Just like IP addresses. Easy to transpose digits.

[nuttycyclist]

...The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

What smart phone?

If you are asking about what types of smart phone have this enabled, apple for a couple of years. Don’t know about android but I would expect so if it is recent.

I read it more as "what if your phone is just a phone".   I don't have a smartphone, I have no need.  I know many other people who just have "a mobile phone".

[Kim]

I read it more as "what if your phone is just a phone".   I don't have a smartphone, I have no need.  I know many other people who just have "a mobile phone".

Then you're probably a luddite who can read a map.

[Cudzoziemiec]

As Nutty recounted a few posts ago, he can read street names, but that doesn't seem to help the emergency services.

[Davef]

The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

Hello coastguard, my location is https://what3words.com/sensual.hissy.semantic but I have no signal.  I am taking on water.

In that situation I would press the red emergency button on my handheld dsc vhf marine radio. That would contact the coastguard with my location and mayday whilst I carried on frantically fixing the bilge pump.

[Davef]

...The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

What smart phone?

If you are asking about what types of smart phone have this enabled, apple for a couple of years. Don’t know about android but I would expect so if it is recent.

I read it more as "what if your phone is just a phone".   I don't have a smartphone, I have no need.  I know many other people who just have "a mobile phone".

If you don’t have a smart phone the what 3 words is not going to help either, unless you have it on your garmin.

[mzjo]

People seem to be suggesting using 6 figure grid references as a preference.

Yep, because it's unique.

And unique to the British Isles. If I as a french resident come to the UK and need to contact the rescue services will they accept my Michelin sheet number, fold number, square number as a suitable location (it being wot I'm supposed to know)? Easier to take my paper and pencil, write down the GPS location off my GPS or phone and give them that (assuming that I can speak enough english to know my numbers).

[Jaded]

If you have a phone that can get w3w and you have a signal, then

1) your phone knows where it is
2) your phone can tell anyone else where it is

No need for a proprietary new system.

[rafletcher]

People seem to be suggesting using 6 figure grid references as a preference.

Yep, because it's unique.

And unique to the British Isles. If I as a french resident come to the UK and need to contact the rescue services will they accept my Michelin sheet number, fold number, square number as a suitable location (it being wot I'm supposed to know)? Easier to take my paper and pencil, write down the GPS location off my GPS or phone and give them that (assuming that I can speak enough english to know my numbers).

Nah, we'd ask for you credit card number frst 

But GPS / Grid reference as AFAIUI similar ways of plotting position. 

[Tim Hall]

If you have a phone that can get w3w and you have a signal, then

1) your phone knows where it is
2) your phone can tell anyone else where it is

No need for a proprietary new system.

Ding! Is the right answer.

[Davef]

People seem to be suggesting using 6 figure grid references as a preference.

Yep, because it's unique.

And unique to the British Isles. If I as a french resident come to the UK and need to contact the rescue services will they accept my Michelin sheet number, fold number, square number as a suitable location (it being wot I'm supposed to know)? Easier to take my paper and pencil, write down the GPS location off my GPS or phone and give them that (assuming that I can speak enough english to know my numbers).

Nah, we'd ask for you credit card number frst 

But GPS / Grid reference as AFAIUI similar ways of plotting position.

Longitude and latitude

Four-three-point-two-seven-eight-six-comma-zero-point-four-seven-one.

You could call it “what 15 words”

Sorry was that four-three or fourteen you said ?

[Kim]

Longitude and latitude

Four-three-point-two-seven-eight-six-comma-zero-point-four-seven-one.

Unless they want it in degrees minutes and seconds, of course...

(Probably not worth worrying about datums at this point, as the error usually gets you within shouting distance.)

[Cudzoziemiec]

If you have a phone that can get w3w and you have a signal, then

1) your phone knows where it is
2) your phone can tell anyone else where it is

No need for a proprietary new system.

Ding! Is the right answer.

It's not just the phone though, it depends on the operator's systems. According to Wikipedia as of March 2021 that's most but not all of Europe, Australia, NZ, USA and the UAE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location#Implementations

[Kim]

If you have a phone that can get w3w and you have a signal, then

1) your phone knows where it is
2) your phone can tell anyone else where it is

No need for a proprietary new system.

Ding! Is the right answer.

It's not just the phone though, it depends on the operator's systems. According to Wikipedia as of March 2021 that's most but not all of Europe, Australia, NZ, USA and the UAE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location#Implementations

Yeah, but you don't need that to use either a) the phone's GPS receiver or  b) some mapping software and map-reading  skills to get some coordinates and read them to the operator over the phone.

You do, however, need an operator who can do something useful with map coordinates, rather than ask for a postcode or tell you to install W3W.  It's shocking that we're arguing about software when it appears that they can't even cope with a WGS84 lat/long or an OSGB grid ref, let alone reasonable verbal descriptions of unique map locations.

That stuff needs sorting out, and more urgently than the shiny software.

[bobb]

I suppose if you want to use a grid reference, call 999 and when asked which service you want, ask for Coastguard. They'll understand what you're talking about. They can then get the info to the actual service you require in a format they understand ie Post code, w3w....

They might be pissed off at you, but seeing as you often hear stories of Britons calling them from all corners of the globe as they have no idea who else to call, they'll probably sort you out.