If your work or leisure activities take you into unmapped areas of the earth, you should know about What3words.

What3words uses geocodes to narrow down a location to within a 3X3 metre square space irrespective of whether it is in a city, a forest, or a lake.

The app will work in offline mode even when your mobile phone can’t get a signal. What3words is available free of cost for non-commercial use.

It can happen to you

Whether you are trying to find your way around in a foreign city, boating on a lake, skiing on a mountain, or trekking in a conservation area, there’s always a chance that something can go awry. If you don’t believe that it can happen to you, you should read this article in National Geographic titled, Day hikers are the most vulnerable in survival situations.

According to the research, wandering off trail is the number one reason, ahead of injury and bad weather, that adult hikers require search and rescue.

National Geographic

While you may have a system to handle unforeseen situations, leveraging technology to get you out of a jam would make sense.

Geocode systems translate physical addresses into their GPS coordinates. Whether it is a building, a tennis court, a bridge, or any other point on the surface of the earth, geocodes allow you to find a location’s longitude and latitude.

If you use Google Maps for driving directions or use Waze to avoid road hazards and construction zones, you are already using applications that leverage geocodes.

What’s different about what3words?

The geocoding system behind what3words has divided the entire surface of the earth into 3X3 metre grids and assigned each grid a unique three-word address. Hence the name what3words. The three-word format makes it easier to remember than traditional GPS coordinates.

The what3words address for Canada’s CN Tower ///select.threaten.shelters is message.amazing.gobble.

Your house has a unique three-word address; you can look it up here.

The What3words addressing system is global and consistent. It is not tied to geopolitical boundaries, which means that if a road gets renamed or a region gets annexed by a country, the geocode-based address will not change.

Why should you care?

Not every point on this earth has an address. If you ever get stuck in a place that is not on a map, what3words will come in handy.

Contrary to what you may think, you don’t have to be in a Peruvian jungle or a Panamanian rainforest to find yourself in a place without an address. A hiking trail, a lake, or a new development in your city may not have usable addresses and mapped roads to pinpoint your location.  

Consider the following scenarios.

• Roadside assistance on a rural road
• An Uber pick-up at a construction site that has no street names
• Finding your car in a large outdoor parking lot that has no markers
• A medical emergency while picnicking in a large conservation area
• A stalled boat in the middle of a lake
• Wandering off a trail and getting lost
• Finding your way around in a foreign city when you can’t read the signs
• Inadvertently veering off the trail while skiing

The idea is to identify your exact location through the app and provide it to the person or the team that is trying to find you. Anyone who receives the codes can plug it into the map view of the app to pinpoint your location.

What3words is available on IoS, Android, and desktops as a standalone tool.

What3words works with Google Maps to enable navigation from one point to another. In offline mode, the maps may not load, but the inbuilt navigation compass continues to work and points you in the direction of your destination.

Many business applications can benefit from what3words. Search and rescue, postal services, and transportation are some areas where geocoding applications are finding increasing levels of adoption.

Pinpoint accuracy will become crucial when intelligent machines such as drones begin to play a significant part in the future of commerce.

So, whether you want a drone to deliver pizza to your backyard, or are contemplating a trek around Machu Picchu in Peru, it’s good to be aware that these apps exist.