It seems that what3words is proprietary. The app on AppStore expects 40€ annually for quite basic functionality, hard to see how something with potentially useful functionality can get global acceptance at these costs.
Yes, and incredibly enough, it’s been pushed by none other than Google Maps! It’s called Plus Codes, and the algorithm to encode and decode coordinates to/from Plus Codes is stable and can be performed entirely offline. maps.google.com/pluscodes/
It almost seems like a different use case. It seems like the plus codes are effectively like mailing addresses for places that dont have addresses (lots of countries). They still lack the ability to do clear, analog communication (e.g., over radio or just a person’s memory in a search and rescue situation).
I will say, I’ve noticed the plus codes, but never looked into them. It’s really good that they are open source and can be generated offline. Hopefully they have some adoption in other apps/devices.
While Plus Codes are less memorable they are very easy to share verbally. Especially since you only need city + a few characters to be unambiguous. They are very useful any time you need to share a specific location (GPS-style)
How does that work?
V75V+8Q Paris, France
If you reach “v75v+ paris”, it’s less detailed than the full plus code, and “paris+8q” doesnt get you anything.
The fact is that it depends and it is a bit confusing for people not familiar. But it isn’t hard to get used to.
+8Q, Parisisn’t specific enough. There are multiple +8Q inside Paris. It can also be a bit risky to make short codes like this especially with larger cities as different maps may put the city in different spots.What does work is
+8Q Eiffel Towerwhich is useful for something like “Meet me here by the Eiffel Tower” or “I’m right here” when you are texting someone you are meeting and you know you are close but can’t see each other.So you end up with a few common options:
+8Q Eiffel TowerWe are pretty close together but need to get the exact spot.V75V+8Q Paris, FranceFor exact spots around a known area.8FW4V75V+8QFor fully qualified with no reference needed.
And a few less useful options:
8FW4V7+This large part of a city.8FW4+This part of the country.8F+This area of the world.
If I was designing the system I don’t think I would have done this “trailing zeros assumed” approach. Because IMHO for day-to-day use
V75V+Would be more useful as a shortcut for????V75V+rather than the actualV75V????+showing a rough location on a human scale (in this case the Eiffel Tower park is pretty clearly targeted) rather than an area larger than a city. But that is really the only complaint I have.Ah, that all makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I can see this being really useful once apps have handled all the ways people might want to shorthand things.
https://plus.codes/ click ミ > Grid
The full plus-code is actually 8 characters before the plus and 2–3 after. Usually you only need 4 to get within one city. Just like with phone numbers, where the first geographical part is often omitted.
Actually seeing the grid makes it way easier, I think. I bet there’s a way to turn that on in the Google maps app itself.
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Oh dang. I haven’t actually used the app in a while. It seems like the monetization of core features is a new thing?
It’s such a simple and good idea at its core, so it seems really stupid to muck it up. I guess I will just have to go back to using decimal lat/longs. At least mapping applications seem to be able to interpret those better now. For the longest time, even Google maps would just give you no results if you typed in what was obviously lat/long if you didn’t have the ° symbol and minutes/seconds.
What is your use case? Certainly wouldn’t pay that though. Distance/direction from a clear reference point, link a URL of a map, lat/long. All options I would take above paying a subscription.
The original use case, as far as I know, is helping search and rescue. Words that are easy to communicate verbally, and easy to remember, so you dont have to worry about bad radio or phone signal garbling communication. Even if your phone dies, or you dont have pen/paper, it’s easy enough to remember the three words and communicate to search and rescue after you’ve made it out to a trailhead or whatever.
“Where are you?”
“ThereThey’reTheir”I would hope they minimize the use of homophones. They do use different forms of words, but the way the words are assigned, you aren’t going to have 2 really similar sounding locations in the same area. If you know someone went missing on a hike in Scotland, you’ll be able to figure out that the three words correspond to a Scottish location and not somewhere in Kenya.
