GPS BOAT LOCATION ON STEROIDS!! PIN POINT YOUR BOAT!

[StuartC]

They've added w3w to bridges and things in the Open Canal Map app and I find they really get in the way. I suggested they make them optional on a different map layer so fingers crossed. If they added plus codes as an alternative option at the same time that would be even better. Keep everyone happy!

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

The coal wagon drivers seem to know their area. Never had a delivery problem telling them a pub name or bridge. 

So can’t see why a canal releated business shouldn’t know either.  They can look in a Nicholson if they're unfamiliar with their area. 

 

Too many gadgets and too many gadgets with apps theses days. 

Everyone being conditioned not to think for themselves. 

What’s wrong with a map and some local knowledge?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[magpie patrick]

On 18/10/2018 at 14:28, DutchBargeFrancisca said:

 

 

But if I have to choose between navigating to GRC8+CJ or ///vine.couches.herds. ... I know which looks easier to use for me.

Thank you! A good point well made! Too many people who rave about how good technology is are geeks who enjoy using it, an awful lot of us regard it as necessary but not exactly a pleasure. what3words LOOKS and FEELS easy, and doesn't need me to be particularly organised. I can remember a sequence of words several weeks later, by which time I'll have forgotten the code, lost the bit of paper I wrote it on, and the link I downloaded will be way down the cache in my phones memory

[sirweste]

While W3W is designed to be easy to use by the technically challenged and easier to remember, it has obvious and glaring limitations.

 

Limitations which plus code was designed not to have. 

 

Quite simply, if you think W3W is great or you think local knowledge and a map is better, then most likely your not from the tech generation. Plus codes are designed for the future, a future which a lot of you won't be alive in! 

 

 

[Mike Tee]

13 hours ago, Goliath said:

The coal wagon drivers seem to know their area. Never had a delivery problem telling them a pub name or bridge. 

So can’t see why a canal releated business shouldn’t know either.  They can look in a Nicholson if they're unfamiliar with their area. 

 

Too many gadgets and too many gadgets with apps theses days. 

Everyone being conditioned not to think for themselves. 

What’s wrong with a map and some local knowledge?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Absolutely nothing, but at 3:00am in the middle of nowhere with someone on a boat needing urgent medical attention, I'd want to use something simple, quick and a system a non-local ambulance driver would use. Which they do.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

1 hour ago, Mike Tee said:

Absolutely nothing, but at 3:00am in the middle of nowhere with someone on a boat needing urgent medical attention, I'd want to use something simple, quick and a system a non-local ambulance driver would use. Which they do.

Fair enough. 

I see your point. 

 

But would someone please tell me where nowhere is? Especially it’s middle. ?  I’m always looking for it only to find I’m somewhere. 

[Mike Tee]

Probably somewhere on the Shropshire Union. But where is it's middle? Which is a question often asked.

[Richard Fairhurst]

On 14/08/2019 at 10:12, Mike Tee said:

Absolutely nothing, but at 3:00am in the middle of nowhere with someone on a boat needing urgent medical attention, I'd want to use something simple, quick and a system a non-local ambulance driver would use. Which they do.

Your phone already tells the emergency services your location, by default, without you having to do anything:

 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208076

 

https://crisisresponse.google/emergencylocationservice/how-it-works/

 

Absolutely no need to use a third-party app like what3words.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

17 minutes ago, Richard Fairhurst said:

Your phone already tells the emergency services your location, by default, without you having to do anything:

 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208076

 

https://crisisresponse.google/emergencylocationservice/how-it-works/

 

Absolutely no need to use a third-party app like what3words.

Yea, but in the middle of nowhere we won’t get a signal. 

So I can sleep well knowing a paramedic won’t wake me up trying to resuscitate me. 

[Lily Rose]

1 hour ago, Richard Fairhurst said:

Your phone already tells the emergency services your location, by default, without you having to do anything:

 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208076

 

https://crisisresponse.google/emergencylocationservice/how-it-works/

 

Absolutely no need to use a third-party app like what3words.

 

In that case why are they asking people to download it?

 

Surely they wouldn't if there was absolutely no need for it.

 

Having downloaded it I think it is reassuring to know it's there in case it was ever needed. If it's not needed then no harm done. If it is then it just possibly could be the difference between life and death if it saves time as minutes matter for some things (heart attack, stroke etc).

 

[Graham Davis]

1 hour ago, Richard Fairhurst said:

Your phone already tells the emergency services your location, by default, without you having to do anything:

 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208076

 

https://crisisresponse.google/emergencylocationservice/how-it-works/

 

Absolutely no need to use a third-party app like what3words.

Reading both links I see no mention of that system working in the UK, and most certainly NOT where there is no phone service.

[Mike Tee]

One of the benefits of the W3W system is that it will give you a location without a phone signal (don't ask, I don't know, but assuming a satellite) so at least if you have to run up to a reception area, you know, and can tell the emergency services, exactly where the problem is, and don't need to wait for them. Then go back to the emergency.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, Mike Tee said:

One of the benefits of the W3W system is that it will give you a location without a phone signal (don't ask, I don't know, but assuming a satellite) so at least if you have to run up to a reception area, you know, and can tell the emergency services, exactly where the problem is, and don't need to wait for them. Then go back to the emergency.

And the paramedic in the ambulance can look on his phone and see exactly where you are.

[Richard Fairhurst]

4 hours ago, Lily Rose said:

 

In that case why are they asking people to download it?

 

Surely they wouldn't if there was absolutely no need for it.

what3words is a venture capital-backed company. Investors have sunk $14m into the company. They want a return on their investment. They are not a charity.

 

4 hours ago, Graham Davis said:

Reading both links I see no mention of that system working in the UK, and most certainly NOT where there is no phone service.

It does work in the UK, as Google's chief map technologist has confirmed today on Twitter. But you're quite right. If you're in an area without phone service then what3words is much better because you can phone the emergency services and give them your what3words address.

[1st ade]

6 hours ago, Richard Fairhurst said:

It does work in the UK, as Google's chief map technologist has confirmed today on Twitter. But you're quite right. If you're in an area without phone service then what3words is much better because you can phone the emergency services and give them your what3words address.

Not only does it work in the UK it was (mostly) developed in the UK.

 

There's a compromise between W3W and the "official" system - a compromise with no obvious solution. W3W (apart from any commercial consideration) gives you the address which you pass on - hence it can deal with the "my boat is at ... but I'm phoning from.." scenario. The BT / Google / 999 services solution is totally automated and transparent to the caller. This makes it far better when the caller is incapacitated, frightened to speak or whatever. Think terrorist attack, rape victim or an almost unconscious victim of an RTA (Road Traffic Accident)

 

And as an aside, check out all the pro W3W articles in the media. Over 90% quote the same source in either Bedford Police or Avon and Somerset Fire Service. A very small number of people in the Blue Light services seem to have a downer on the system which was developed in consultation with ... The Blue Light Services!

[Lily Rose]

 

Oh well, it's a free country, we can all decide whether or not to use it.

 

I think it's worth having "just in case".

 

I'd rather not have an emergency call where the call handler says "we're not sure exactly where you are, can you give me your What3Words location please" and I say "Sorry, no, I didn't download it because it's funded by venture capitalists who just want to make a profit out of us. And anyway, I heard that Google Maps and OS grid references are better".

 

I would be the loser in that scenario.

 

So I've downloaded it onto my phone and played with it for a few minutes to make sure I know how it works. If I never need to use it that would be great. But at least it's there, just in case.

 

Everyone else is free to make their own choices.

 

I think I'm now done with trying to persuade anyone else to use it. Apart from those dear to me that is.

 

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

Several years ago we were moored up and saw lots of flashlights on the towpath, I cant remember which canal, but to was 2 lady Ambulance crews walking up and down about 3 miles of towpath looking for a boat. They had the access point for the towpath on their sat nav, after that they were on their own. With this thy could have looked at their smartphone and it would have taken them straight to the boat. 

[cuthound]

27 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Several years ago we were moored up and saw lots of flashlights on the towpath, I cant remember which canal, but to was 2 lady Ambulance crews walking up and down about 3 miles of towpath looking for a boat. They had the access point for the towpath on their sat nav, after that they were on their own. With this thy could have looked at their smartphone and it would have taken them straight to the boat. 

 

If they had been looking at their smartphones rather than watching where they might have fallen in the canal, rather like the lady in Birmingham a few years ago. ?

 

 

Edited August 17, 2019 by cuthound