A New Use for this Fabulous Free App?
If, like me, you live in a rural community where houses have names rather than numbers and sometimes not even a street name to guide delivery services, you might spend your time providing directions to delivery drivers fairly frequently. With our new reliance on doorstep deliveries during the health crisis a system for pinpointing locations could be very useful…
Enter the ‘What3Words’ app (downloadable from the app store free of charge) and www.what3words.com.
This amazing, free app and website allows you to pinpoint a location using street maps, satellite street views and satellite locating (even without data or a phone signal). The world has been divided into 3 metre squares, with each having a unique three word locator which never changes. When you pinpoint your location the app / website provides you with this three word reference which has numerous uses – my favourite (unsurprisingly!) is providing an accurate location for the emergency services to be able to find you. Ambulances, for example, have brilliant navigation systems which take the ambulance directly to your door – but they have limited usefulness if the casualty is in a field, woodland or along a riverbank for example.
But you can use this app for all sorts of things, not just emergency services and doorstep deliveries. In ‘normal’ times, it’s handy for specifying a meeting point with friends, especially if it’s in an open area such as on a beach or in a park, for relocating your car in a large car park, for finding your tent again at Glastonbury (other festivals are (usually) available!)… It’s uses are almost limitless!
You can find out more about how to use What3Words without a signal or data from this short video https://www.infoserve.com/lp/digital-marketing-covid19/ – also useful to those of us living in rural areas with little phone signal!
The What3Words team has also put together a kid-friendly webinar showing you how it works – why not try it out then task the children to find the locator words for some of your favourite places in preparation for being released back into the world?
