June Bug Posted August 26, 2019 Share Posted August 26, 2019 Has anyone heard of the what3words app? The article linked below recounts its effective use in England to find lost hikers, but not sure if it has or will have any traction yet in the US, although there's no reason why it shouldn't. This is from Interesting Engineering: This Smartphone App Can Save Your Life with Just 3 Words Of note: Quote "The country of Mongolia has, in fact, replaced its entire postal code system with what3words addresses." I like the concept because I process words and not numbers, but I'm not clear on how this is more effective than GPS location with a smart phone. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brentb Posted August 26, 2019 Share Posted August 26, 2019 It's a neat idea, to create a 3m grid across the world and label each square with its own 3-word label. It's not any more or less effective than GPS (for the problem of specifying a general location or address), but if one is lost and has a spotty cell connection, it might be simpler to communicate with a few words than trying to convey lat-long accurately. "I'm stuck at ///zebras.wisely.rearrange" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AustinBike Posted August 26, 2019 Share Posted August 26, 2019 My house is whiskey tango foxtrot 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AntonioGG Posted August 27, 2019 Share Posted August 27, 2019 This is like MGRS with a fixed grid size and words instead of numbers and letters. Pretty cool! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Grid_Reference_System Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chongo Loco Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 I like the concept because I process words and not numbers, but I'm not clear on how this is more effective than GPS location with a smart phone. So if I get the founders’ concept it’s because the person on the other end of the phone may not be able see your GPS location direct from your phone. I wouldn’t expect that in a remote mountain S&R team or if they’re in the field. So you would have to tell them. If you’re giving that long string of Longitude/latitude numbers for a precise GPS location and you transpose a number or they write it down wrong or punch it into their handheld wrong you could be off by a county or more. You’re talking lost, hurt, panicked people relaying precise digits. 3 unique words is a lot harder to screw up on both ends.I do like the text your location feature. Need to get my kid to actually use it. The Life360 iPhone lowjack app has a ton of drift. Hard to tell which location she exits school at times and she can’t get a phone signal in that concrete prison of a building. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
June Bug Posted September 3, 2019 Author Share Posted September 3, 2019 (edited) Right now there are many people in the Bahamas who are trapped in their homes/attics, or worse, adrift, streets are many feet under water, there are medical emergencies -- most physical ways of orienting have been wiped out or under water. If I'm understanding how the What3Words app works, it could (hypothetically) work in this situation for first responders to locate those in distress, correct? Edited September 3, 2019 by June Bug Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ridenfool Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 2 hours ago, June Bug said: Right now there are many people in the Bahamas who are trapped in their homes/attics, or worse, adrift, streets are many feet under water, there are medical emergencies -- most physical ways of orienting have been wiped out or under water. If I'm understanding how the What3Words app works, it could (hypothetically) work in this situation for first responders to locate those in distress, correct? Only if the cell towers are still upright and running to offer a network to communicate on and the victim's phones have been kept charged and dry. Two big ifs under the circumstances. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cxagent Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 I like this idea. When doing the emergency location markers for signs we ran into this exact problem. People thought they could use the GPS locations (lat / long) to give an exact location. After all, they could read it off their phone and relay that to 911 or whoever. Yeah right. In a stressful situation you are going to read two 15 digit numbers off your phone to someone who is going to write those down perfectly so they can transfer those to the person who will actually go help the injured rider. Not going to happen. one lost digit or transposed digit and the location could be off by miles. And don't forget that many GPS "systems" use different methods of those locations. Some use negative numbers. Others use positive numbers ONLY. Some use degrees minutes seconds then start decimals. Some go straight to decimals. This quickly turned into a big a mess as saying 'I'm by the drop with the big tree and the rock...'. Mile markers were almost as bad. Ask a person "what mile marker are you closest to" and they will give you the reading on their GPS/Strava. Assuming you know where they started, know the exact path they took, and they never doubled back or sessioned anything, that might get the first responders close. Miss any one of those details and chances of finding them quickly are slim to none. ARR started using a 3 digit location identifier. The first digit tells the first responder which "entrance" to use (almost all trails have multiple entrances like BCGB) or zone (break the trails into different areas). The other two digits give an exact location. Most land owners / land manager liked this system. This is what is used on most trails with signage. Some land owners / land manager hated it. They thought it was too illogical. It could wind up with numbers physically close together on the trail but vastly different numbers. For those areas we use a grid system. (Like most maps with letters across the top and numbers down the sides.) That identifies to the first responders to a "square" but then it is up to them which part of the trail thru that square they need to find. Both methods have good points and bad points. The 3 words system helps some. If it catches on and most people (land managers and first responders) know what this is and how to use it - we will change to use it. That way there is no "special map" needed to decode the locations. For some reason, some land managers chose to keep that map to themselves. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AntonioGG Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 Don't some national parks already use the USNG? https://usngcenter.org/portfolio-item/print-marker-online/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
throet Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 I'm curious what might have helped that poor woman in Arkansas who died in her car recently as it filled with water. She was unable to pinpoint her location and it took rescuers nearly an hour to get to her. She was on the phone with the dispatcher for over 20 minutes. Most of the news regarding this was around the dispatcher's insensitivity, and rightfully so, but nothing has really been said of what, if anything, they could have done to facilitate getting a precise location for her. Heck in the twenty minutes or so that she was berated, maybe they could have talked her through loading one of these apps. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cxagent Posted September 4, 2019 Share Posted September 4, 2019 20 hours ago, AntonioGG said: Don't some national parks already use the USNG? https://usngcenter.org/portfolio-item/print-marker-online/ This is the first I have seen of that. It shows (again) that none of us are as smart as all of us. I should have asked the question of the "hive". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
June Bug Posted September 5, 2019 Author Share Posted September 5, 2019 Garmin isn't there yet, apparently. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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