Calling 000

Mike Harding · Guru

RE: Calling 000

Tony LEE · Guru

I installed w3w as well and that made no difference to whether Emergency offered w3w option.

Looking at w3w, seems to me that many of the words are such that saying them under stressful situations, especially by the huge numbers whose first language is not English (Australian English at that) is going to be very prone to errors and might require carefully spelling out long unusual words.

Eg https://w3w.co/communicated.notated.gnat

https://w3w.co/philosophers.determining.removed

https://w3w.co/heavily.carting.longingly

This 3 word address refers to an exact 3m x 3m location. Tap the link or enter the 3 words into the free what3words app to find it.

Coordinates seem to be less likely to get wrong.

-- Edited by Tony LEE on Sunday 4th of October 2020 08:02:55 AM

dabbler · Guru

Join the beta program and offer your experience Mike. When location services are turned off, my Emergency+ (Android), it requests location services but can still be used if you cancel the request. When location services are turned off, w3w needs a street address and can't find your current location.They are chalk and cheese as far as being usable in an emergency situation partly because w3w is merely a means to display location information on your device.

Ozzie_Traveller · Senior Member

G'day all

While it seems "us ol' farts" are comfortable with '000' - I can recall something from Telstra 8 - 10 years ago saying that they have had to introduce a call diversion process for emergency calls

When the caller dialled "911" the Telstra voice said 'Australia uses triple-zero for emergencies - you are being transferred now"
Phil

Tony LEE · Guru

Emergency Plus
Your rating:
It might get 5 stars if you would explain where my three words comes into the picture. No obvious reference to it when you open the app, just normal coordinates
Developer response:
Hi Tony, New update that is now accepting what3words is still in beta testing. Great news though, we can confirm it's ready to release at the end of October 2020 ;)

Mike Harding · Guru

Tony LEE wrote:
Looking at w3w, seems to me that many of the words are such that saying them under stressful situations, especially by the huge numbers whose first language is not English (Australian English at that) is going to be very prone to errors and might require carefully spelling out long unusual words.

Apologies; I intended to reply to this at the time but didn't?

I agree.

Wishing to obtain a W3W string for my present location I wandered around for a few minutes before finding a string I thought suitable for exactly the reason you highlight above.

In fairness to W3W it was not developed for emergency situations but rather so that eg. delivery drivers could identify a specific loading bay and similar applications but it seems to have morphed into an emergency thing too as, sadly, so few people have any idea of maps or coordinate systems.

----

>New update that is now accepting what3words is still in beta testing.

This simply confirms my sense of it being a utility produced by amateurs. If it currently does not provide a W3W string then they should not be saying it does in the release notes!

StreetsAhead · Veteran Member

I note today that the Emergency Plus App on my phone has now updated with "What3Words" So now as soon as I press the App the main screen comes up with a Google Map, my Longitude and Latitude co-ordinates and also three words.

As long as I have a phone signal I am all good. If out of signal range I can still get the the information but have no way of relaying it to Emergency Services. (Now where did I leave that carrier pigeon).

Tony LEE · Guru

"As long as I have a phone signal I am all good. If out of signal range I can still get the the information but have no way of relaying it to Emergency Services. (Now where did I leave that carrier pigeon)." - - Or use a Garmin Inreach tracker

Xtrk138 · Member

The latest update of Emergency Plus on I phone has ' what3words' showing below the conventional Latitude and Longitude location with 3 words for your current location below.