UKH

Do you need 4G for this app to work ?

In reply to mike foley:

I'm not sure.

But it's of doubtful use in the UK hills anyway. An OS grid reference is an already-established system that's as accurate as anyone needs. Scottish Mountain Rescue have sounded a sceptical note on W3W, and I imagine MR elsewhere will feel similar:

"W3W has its uses in the modern world... But for us as rescue teams perhaps the single most useful piece of information we can have that allows a speedy response is an accurate OS grid reference, the sooner we get that the better."

In reply to Dan Bailey - UKHillwalking.com:

And is it not the case that the SARLOC system replicates the functionality of W3W without the need to download an app? 

In reply to mike foley:

I think you do need Internet.   

I can see the disadvantages.  

The big advantage is that it is simple and easy to use if you have no idea where you are and needs no understanding of maps or navigation.  I can see it being useful for the general public in that way.  A child could manage to use it.  

In reply to mike foley:

No - once you have installed the app and database, you don't need 4G, it's all offline.

What you do need is a GPS signal to tell you which square you're in, or where you are in relation to the square you want to get to, if you're using it as a navigation aid.

If you're using is as a rescue aid, you need some means of communicating your location to whoever is looking for you, which would require a phone signal or someone to go and get help.

In reply to Dan Bailey - UKHillwalking.com:

 A W3W position is directly convertible to an OS position.  The point of the system is that it minimises transmission errors and makes transmission errors much more obvious that they would be with a similar error in a grid reference (such as you would get from SARLOC).  It is analogous to the phonetic alphabet.

Obviously not a tool for navigation, but as a means of communicating a position there seem to be many advantages.

In reply to MarkJH:e

There is no scope for verbal / befuddled brain errors with SARLOC, as long as the user has hit the link the GPS location of the phone provided thier location services are enabled is automatically sent back.  The casualty doesn't verbally communicate the grid ref to the MRT/police and SARLOC doesn't need to have been installed prior to use.

Sadly neither W3W or SARLOC can resolve a non compos-mentis caz unable to say the words, or hit the link. Or a caz with no effective comm's.

Furthermore malicious callers can't give a false location with SARLOC, where as they could with W3W.

In reply to ScraggyGoat:

Which assumes that you can transmit data from your phone...  If you only have voice communications (quite common for me), or have noted down a position on paper, or are relying on a third party to contact the emergency services, then there are lots of opportunities for errors.

In reply to Dan Bailey - UKHillwalking.com:

But surely therein lies the problem.  many people who need rescuing have no idea about grid references and locating themselves and probably have no intention of learning.  I've downloaded this app.  It looks very useful and a far, far easier way of communicating this information. The more people who take up with it the better it will become.

Al

In reply to MarkJH:

SMS can work when there isn't enough signal for voice and text.

An update to the phone OS so that calls and sms messages to 999, 911 and 112 etc have location appended as a voice and text message. Hence active  by default  when you buy a phone. 

In reply to mike foley:

This article seemed fairly balanced to me, discussing the pros and cons of the system:

https://peaksandlines.com/blog/posts/location-location-location

In reply to mike foley:

"Work, you bastard!". Might only achieve results if uttered by Uri Geller, though.

In reply to MarkJH:

How does it work with the myriad of words in the English language hear/here, dear/deer, their/there etc or with strong accents?

In reply to GridNorth:

But if it's a case of installing a free app, you may as well install OS Locate. Then you have an accurate grid reference that MR can use without needing to use a proprietary system, and without needing to translate it to a grid reference. And if for whatever reason you need to relocate yourself you can pass them a new grid reference which has an obvious relationship to the last one, rather than being another three random words with no connection to their other local random words which again needs looking up and translating.

In reply to tehmarks:

Just downloaded OS Locate - is there a way to make it give an 8 (or more...) figure grid reference?

Cheers

In reply to Naechi:

I've only used it once to see how well it worked, and it didn't survive my last phone factory restore. I could have sworn it gave an eight figure reference (by default)?

In reply to tehmarks:

Just popping up with 6. Might be another version - I downloaded the first one I found...

In reply to tehmarks:

Never used or even heard of OS Locate so I can't really comment.  All I can say is that What3words is very easy to use. I may take a look and see how it compares.  Apart from that grid refs may be fine for mountain rescue and outdoors types but doesn't really hack it when dealing with punters in urban surroundings.  What3words seems to cater for all situations.

Al

In reply to tehmarks:

Alternatively, you can download the GridPointGB app. It’s also free and gives a 10 figure grid ref. However, I would have thought that an 8 figure grid ref would be good enough for mountain rescue teams? 

I’ve used it a few times in the mountains in poor visibility and it’s been a great tool to pinpoint your location and aid navigation. It’s a nice feeling too when it confirms that you are where you think you are on the map! 

Hope that helps. 

Paul

In reply to Cornish boy:

I find it hard to believe a 10 figure grid ref on a phone app is actually accurate.

On the subject of what3words I think it's another tool in the toolbox for locating people. It's clearly worked on a number of occasions.

In reply to Ridge:

It's as accurate as the GNSS receiver in the phone. Which will be the same receiver used to generate the 3m W3W string.

A GNSS reciever can give you a 10 figure (1m) precision grid reference, but the position fix achieved will not be that accurate. Assuming the use of a satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS), e.g. EGNOS or WAAS, to provide correction for ionospheric and tropospheric errors, and assuming that there are no local natural or urban canyon issues that will throw the fix off, you should be able to achieve about 3m error with a modern GNSS receiver. A receiver can estimate the error in the current fix, based on some properties of the received signals, and an analysis of the position solutions provided by the diffeent received signals. The sanity of this error value is dependent on the nature and level of analysis performed by the receiver, which is implementation-dependent (i.e. it is defined by the receiver, not by the GNSS constellation itself).

An 8-figrue GR is a more reasonable figure to use with a consumer GNSS receiver. The two extra digits don't hurt.

In reply to JoshOvki:

Homophones are removed from the word list.  Furthermore, the word combinations  are designed such that locations that are geographically close do not have phonetically similar combinations of words.  Grid references (by contrast) are most similar to their adjacent positions.  It makes error detection (or even correction) much easier.

In reply to LastBoyScout:

I was wrong.  I switched off my WiFi and mobile data, and was able to send a text with my location.  

I copied and pasted into the text message, so no error there. As someone said texts sometimes go when voice calls won’t.  

So as long as I have location working and some means of communication it’s useable.  

However if it can’t get the location it seems to default to somewhere random in West London rather than a recent location, which isn’t helpful. 

In reply to tehmarks:

I think you underestimate how many of the general public feel about numbers and systems that use numbers.  Many are quite convinced they can’t use numbers.  For many people words are much less terrifying.  Ridiculous maybe, but true.  

In reply to Harry Jarvis:

From what I’ve read Sarloc is great if you have internet connection.  Otherwise it won’t work.  

So why not use Sarloc if possible and w3w if not.  

Failing batteries and GPS of course an old fashioned map and compass and how to use them is always wise.  

In reply to marsbar:

The mobile base station engineer that sits behind me at work says texts only need a sniff of signal to succeed whereas voice and data need much better signal.

In reply to marsbar:

Then maybe we write a new app, do some jazzy marketing, call it...WhichEightWords? And when MR ask for your location, you can confidently tell them that it is 'one one seven three five three seven six' because it's written out in word form for you. Or we could even take it a step further and encode them with some sort of encoding scheme, and you can report your position as 'alpha alpha golf charlie echo charlie golf foxtrot' and not even have to think about numbers.

In one fell swoop we've fixed both a really annoying question of grammar and needing to use numbers!

More seriously though, if we're talking of people who can't navigate to begin with, they don't need to use numbers. They need to read them off of their screen and relay them verbatim to the person on the other end of the phone. If that is too demanding for a reasonable chunk of the population then we really need to reassess our approach to education. We need to do that anyway, in my humble opinion, but that's for a different thread!

In reply to tehmarks:

I’m a teacher.  I know we have problems in the system...

(I blame the parents...)

In reply to tehmarks:

I saw a W3W presentation years ago when it was in its infancy, I remember an initial aim driving its creation was for usage in areas of the world which were remote, where the roads and building had no name, postcode or reference point and hadn't been mapped by OS etc.

The presentation suggested that W3W would provide an "address" location for a rural shack or a current campsite for a nomadic community.

The idea that it would be used for emergency SOS situations in the Western developed world wasn't at the forefront of their pitch  -  more so that Amazon could deliver a parcel to a camel herder in the Sahara……..

The use of aerial sniffer drones detecting an activated SOS beacon will soon overtake the requirement for a casualty to transmit their 8 figure grid reference.